


come to dust

by stelladown



Series: dust [1]
Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: 3509 words of porn, Anal Sex, Aphrodite as wingman, Blood and Violence, Body Worship, Daddy Issues, First Time, Flashbacks, Hand & Finger Kink, Heavy Angst, Homeric Epithets, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Groping, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Sadchilles, Situational Humiliation, Slow Burn, The Iliad References, Trojan War, Virginity Kink, Voyeurism, too many ellipses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:35:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28870926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelladown/pseuds/stelladown
Summary: "You're so much like him, you know. Gentle, despite everything."Achilles risks his contract to help Zagreus escape.His punishment leaves him trapped inside a past Zagreus barely understands.The way out forces them to confront all their secrets.
Relationships: Achilles/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), background Achilles/Patroclus - Relationship
Series: dust [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155935
Comments: 93
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi, my name is Stella and I have not written fic in SEVEN YEARS but this pairing brought me out of the Styx and back to AO3. 
> 
> title from Cymbeline ("all lovers young, all lovers must consign to thee, and come to dust").

Zagreus walks out of the Styx and onto the cold stone floor. White petals stick to the soles of his bloody feet. He tracks them onto the rug, walking so briskly that he can't even hear Hypnos's salutation behind him. His father's desk is empty and in his absence it seems somehow even more prominent, as if the scattered papers and ink bottles were left behind there only to mock him. He fixes his jaw and shoulders past Nyx to his room without even acknowledging her, because he knows if he does, he'll lose the only thread of composure that's let him get this far without breaking down.

He'd seen the sky for the first time, the snow, the trees, and his father had been there waiting to destroy it. Five seconds he'd lasted, maybe ten, before some shockwave had thrown him backward and shattered his spine, maybe, or broken his neck, but all he knows is he'd faded back into the river with the sound of laughter on his heels.

Biting down on his lips, Zagreus splashes some water from the scrying pool over his face, running a hand down to his chin. If it had been anything else - but of course his father would have to be there to do it himself, to make sure it's done properly. His eyes are stinging and his cheeks are hot with frustration. He could actually be about to cry over this, as if he were a kid getting scolded.

"Is it all right if I come in, lad?"

Achilles, sounding as calm as ever. He scrambles for a polite excuse.

"I'm a little, ah, bloody at the moment," he says without turning around, in what he hopes is a normal-sounding voice.

"I don't mean to intrude, but ... you passed me by without a word as you returned, and I thought something might be the matter."

"No, nothing's the matter." Zagreus sits on the corner of his bed, throat closing up with frustration. "I’ve come home again, father saw to that, so now everything's fine."

He can feel the indentation in the mattress from Achilles joining him. If he could just get his face together, push this wave of emotion down ...

"Tell me about it." Achilles's voice is like a cool breeze. "How far did you go this time?"

"I saw the surface," Zagreus begins, and when Achilles responds to that with a gasp and an "oh, lad," the last piece of his composure crumbles away and he lets out a sob, covering his mouth with his hand reflexively. It just hurts. He's so angry, and so tired, and it hurts.

Without a word, Achilles pulls him closer to lean against his shoulder, the sea-green fabric of his chlamys brushing against his cheek. Zagreus swallows back the rest of his tears and lets himself be consoled by the contact, trying not to think about how uncomfortable it must be to have the little bones of his pauldron poking into Achilles's side.

"I’m just ... tired of fighting," he admits after a long moment, looking down at his feet, the ebb of a flame on his little toe. "Of hurting everyone around me. I'm alone out there and when I die, I come back to a house full of angry people. Angry at me. And maybe they're right to be."

"The people in this house have come to depend on things being a certain way," Achilles responds. He can feel the vibration of his voice under his cheek. "I think they are reacting not so much to you as to the idea of change."

"It certainly feels like they're reacting to me when they kill me repeatedly. I think father even enjoyed it."

"Hades himself stood against you, then? I saw him leave, but ... " Achilles squeezes his shoulder sympathetically. ”I'm sorry, lad. That must have been difficult."

Zagreus can't think of anything else to say. He breathes in and out, noticing Achilles's unique scent, some kind of planty aromatic thing he can't place. After another minute of silence, Achilles lets go, moving his arm back, and Zagreus straightens.

"I don't think I can do this again," he says, the realization hitting him as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

“That’s not acceptable.” Achilles’s voice is quiet but firm. “If you need to rest, rest, but don't give up.”

“All of this is happening because of me. Maybe …” Zagreus swallows. “It could go back to normal if I just …”

“And where would that leave you?”

Achilles comes to his feet, robe slipping down to brush the floor. Zagreus looks up at him and immediately wishes he hadn’t; the look on his mentor’s face is crestfallen, brows knit with concern. Guilt scalds him deep in his throat like acid. He’s selfish when he fights and selfish when he doesn’t. Either way, somebody’s getting hurt.

“It pains me to see you like this, without that fire in your eyes,” Achilles murmurs. “You’ve burned so bright with courage and drive.”

All he can do is hang his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I … know you've helped me more than you probably should. Please don't take this as a lack of gratitude.”

He’s expecting another motivational platitude, maybe a brief lecture. Instead, Achilles folds his arms and pauses like he’s considering something. He looks at the entrance to the courtyard, then at Zagreus.

“Which do you prefer? Stygius, still?”

“Actually, it’s been Coronacht lately.”

“Well, arm yourself,” Achilles says with a smile. “You’re coming with me this time.”

Without waiting for a response, he retrieves his spear from where it’s been resting against the wall and strides away into the courtyard. It takes a moment before Zagreus even realizes that he’s expecting him to follow. Baffled, he stands in the archway and watches Achilles lift Varatha as though it were a twig, stabbing the air and twirling it experimentally. He tosses it at Zagreus, who fumbles the catch. It clatters to the floor with an echo.

“Shall we go forth as two spear-bearers, then?”

“Achilles, sir, I –“ He can barely form words. That Achilles would even think to suggest this is almost more than he can process. “I ... can't ask you to get involved in this.”

“You did not ask,” Achilles points out. He gestures for Zagreus to pick up the spear. “My responsibility is to you above all else. I won't stand by and watch you abandon your goal, not when you've come so close.”

“But what about your post? Your contract? You can’t just -”

He taps his spear against Aegis thoughtfully. “Let me worry over the particulars, lad. Your father and I have a … complicated agreement.”

“Can I interrupt?” Skelly’s voice startles both of them. Kneeling, he clasps his little phalanges together in what might be an attempt at propriety. “Achilles, I just wanna say that it would be an honor to be whacked by you with that thing. Just once.”

Obligingly, Achilles makes a show of twirling his spear behind his back before thrusting it directly into the gap between the skeleton’s tiny vertebrae and his collarbones, sending him skidding backwards, then forwards as the warrior pulls his spear free.

“Wow! I bet that'll leave a mark! Right there on my clavicle.” Skelly twirls in excitement. It’s almost contagious; now that the thought has had a chance to settle, Zagreus has to admit that watching his mentor in action, real combat instead of practice drills, is something he’s always dreamed of. Achilles seems so matter-of-fact about it that he could almost convince himself it’s not a terrible, reckless, dangerous idea that they’ll both pay for later.

“It’ll be a chance to see how you've progressed,” Achilles offers gently, as though reading his mind.

“I … don't even know what to say,” Zagreus admits. Gratitude has filled in all the places that were burning with guilt just a minute ago.

“Then don't say anything, and show me how this works.”

* * *

Tartarus glows a sickly green, flames and fog and forgotten shades all mingling together in a decaying blur. At first Zagreus forgets that he’s not fighting alone. Several times he sizes up the wretches, plans his attack, skewers one of them and then turns around to find the rest of the chamber empty and Achilles patiently waiting for him to finish. If he’d thought the denizens of the lowest level of the underworld would react differently to company, that notion disappears fast; the shades here are too caught up in their own deranged suffering to pay attention to who's doing the killing.

This time, after the last wretch has faded, a familiar red beacon emanates from the floor, accompanied by muffled wails of pain and metal striking bronze.

“I accept this message,” Zagreus tells it. When Ares materializes, he stares over Zagreus’s head and his eyes narrow.

“Ares,” comes Achilles’s quiet voice from behind him.

“Achilles. It's been a while, hasn't it?”

“Too long for me to recount our grievances.”

There’s definitely a history here. It makes sense – the god of war and the famous hero – but something in the set of Achilles’s jaw and Ares’s cold half-smile makes him feel like he’s missing something important between them. Too late to ask now.

“So you’ve found yourself a new squire? Why, did something happen to the last one?”

Zagreus feels a chill run through his blood, but Achilles calmly sidesteps the provocation.

“I’m here to assist the prince on his way to –“

“Olympus,” Zagreus cuts in, just to make sure. “Could use all the help I can get.”

When Ares laughs, it sounds like a death rattle. “Well, I for one look forward to seeing the destruction you leave in your wake.” He touches Zagreus’s forehead and the familiar little red surge of pain ricochets through his skull as he fades.

“Mind his blessing,” Achilles murmurs, coming up beside him. “I’ve seen what it can do to a man.”

“It’s not my first time with Ares’s help.” The boon feels like a buzzing under his skin, his nerves jangling with kinetic restlessness. He can feel his grip tighten on the shaft of the spear. The flames on his feet seem hotter, popping and sparking. If he’s being honest, he’s never really thought about any of this before. “What should I be watching out for?”

Achilles chuckles as he walks through the doorway, greeting an unsuspecting lout with a spear thrust to the back of the head, piercing through to its companion. “Well, I can hardly imagine you in a rage. Perhaps it's myself I should be mindful of.”

There’s no room for talking after that. Zagreus finds himself distracted by his mentor’s movements, almost a dance, his footwork mesmerizing as he covers this strange terrain without hesitation, beads of sweat on his biceps and trickling down his forehead, golden hair whipping behind him. It takes a numbskull sinking its teeth into his arm to bring him back to reality.

“You all right there?” Achilles asks, not even out of breath.

“Just … trying to watch and learn,” he half-jokes.

Before long, they come to a familiar door, flanked by two cages of hooded, shambling souls and two disturbing statues, cobwebbed urns and cracked tiles. Zagreus stops, a sudden beat of apprehension in his chest. This part is going to be harder to explain. Achilles casts him a curious glance.

“What happens now?”

“Well,” he says, rubbing his neck, “Megaera usually happens now.”

The fury is waiting, whip in hand, as Zagreus enters the battleground. She opens her mouth to say something, but the sight of Achilles walking up beside him disrupts that thought. Her expression darkens into a flat, baleful glare, her lips drawn tight. This is the only way she looks at him anymore, if she can stand to look at him at all. One of his favorite things about Meg had been her sense of humor, her sarcastic jabs at other people’s expense; now all of the jabs are targeted at him and no one is laughing.

“Achilles? What is this?” She lowers the whip. “You’re not authorized to be here.”

“I'm standing with Zagreus,” he says simply.

“Does Hades know about this?” She actually sounds frightened. Zagreus has to wonder if she’s worried for Achilles or for her own sake if they manage to push past her. Neither of those leaves him feeling good about himself.

“If he's not aware by now,” Achilles replies, “I assume it won't be much longer.”

“I ... this isn't your fight. I don't want to fight you.” Meg bites her lip. Uncertainty radiates from her face in waves. Her fingers are readjusting on the whip handle, rolling it in her hand, almost a nervous tic.

“I imagine Zagreus must feel the same way every time you two meet. Yet he continues regardless of his pain and yours. Have you considered how much this must mean to him, then, that he is willing to face such a dear companion in pursuit of his goal?”

Megaera slowly turns her attention to Zagreus, an unreadable expression, her lips held tight with suppressed words.

“He said it better than I could,” Zagreus offers weakly.

“I ... have to check the regulations. Don't you dare move.”

Raising her cloak over her face, she disappears. Achilles wastes no time; spear in hand, he’s already striding across the room to the staircase. Zagreus follows in tow with a glance over his shoulder to make sure he’s not about to get stabbed.

“Usually the door doesn’t open until she’s … until we’re done,” he points out.

“I’d prefer not to wait for her clarification,” Achilles rejoins.

In the foyer between realms, Zagreus cups the fresh water of the fountain in his hands and takes a sip. The cool rush trickles down his skin from head to toe, and he shivers. He turns to offer a drink to Achilles, but realizes that there’s not a scratch or mark on his mentor. Even his hair is still neatly confined by the circlet. He smiles at Zagreus as if this exchange of glances was an attempt at reassurance, and even in the middle of all this, Zagreus can feel his heart skip a beat.

"Achilles." his father's voice reverberates, enough weight on the name that it sounds like a swear. "After all the years you've served me. I suppose it should come as no surprise that your passions have led you to pointless death and stupidity once again."

If hearing this has any effect on Achilles, it doesn't show on his face or in his bearing. His smile doesn't falter. Zagreus can't keep looking at him; thoughts are piling up in the back of his mind, worries about what kind of revenge Hades will extract from him, from Meg, whether he'll even be allowed to return to the house, whether Hades would be spiteful enough to bring Patroclus into this just to twist the knife. He should have turned Achilles down back in the courtyard. Meg had been right to give him that look. How could he be selfish enough to risk this?

"What is it, lad?" Achilles asks gently.

Isn't it obvious? "Didn’t you hear him? Father knows where you are."

"I'm prepared to deal with the consequences," he says, as though defying the lord of the dead is a regular thing that people do, not worth getting upset over. "Though I do think we should keep pressing on. I believe Asphodel follows, yes?"

Zagreus takes a deep breath, lets it out. He decides to follow Achilles's lead for now and put the fear of the future behind him. Right now, it's the two of them against the underworld, and everything else can wait. If Achilles isn't afraid - the greatest warrior who ever lived - what use is there in being afraid for him?

* * *

In the drenching heat and chaos of Asphodel, they've quickly developed a strategy: Achilles stays unmoving where he's most visible, and Zagreus kites around him, taunting the burn-flingers and wave-makers into jumping after him and then into range of the great warrior's spear. Achilles's hair has finally come loose, plastered to his forehead from sweat. Right now, one of the golden strands is clinging to his mouth, and he brushes it away with the back of a hand, along with the residue of several kills. Zagreus leans on a knee to catch his breath, other hand resting on his spear.

"Shall we switch it up next time?" the warrior asks, his chest rising and falling more quickly now, finally showing some sign of mortal imperfection. "I’ll drive them to you, and you can demonstrate your reach."

"You’re .... giving me a lesson?" he pants.

"Only if you'd like. I thought we may as well get some enjoyment out of this, while we're here."

Enjoyment. Watching you fight is all the enjoyment I need, Zagreus thinks, before pushing that thought away with a twinge of shame. "Why not? Could be fun."

On the barge, he picks up that herbal scent again, sweat-activated and heady. He thinks it's coming from Achilles's hair, maybe some oil he uses. It makes his stomach shiver for reasons he can't really identify. An image floats into his mind, those blond waves falling over his face from above, curling over his chest while he lies underneath, breathing in that smell from up close, and Zagreus has to clear his throat and physically shake his head to dispel it. What did Achilles always say about not losing focus?

Any chance of regaining his focus vanishes in the next chamber with the sound of a gong and a familiar gray-green hue discoloring the molten river. Zagreus braces himself, not even stepping off the boat, just waiting for the inevitable disapproval, but Thanatos has already started without them. With three warriors against the horde, the fight ends almost as quickly as it began; he counts nine dead by his own spear, eleven for Achilles, and it's always been difficult to count Thanatos's subtle extinguishings, but there were at least a few.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Thanatos asks once the room is empty, folding his arms. There's a sharp edge to his usual droll voice. "Zagreus, you're bringing him into your little game now?"

"I’ve -” Achilles begins, and Zagreus cuts him off, not wanting him to take the blow again like he had with Meg.

"Okay, before you can - Achilles, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, and Than, I understand where you're coming from, but Achilles is here because he insisted, not because I wanted to put him in this position."

In obvious frustration, Thanatos can't even respond. He fixes his light-eyed glare on Achilles despite the interference.

"We all have our roles to play. I can't believe I have to say this to you of all people."

"Yet here you are," Achilles points out, "setting your role aside to help him as best you can, because you care for him more than you fear the consequences. I believe we are of like mind in this, Thanatos."

"And what does that make my role, anyway?" Zagreus interrupts. The idea of these two having an argument about him is making his head hurt from the implications. It's easier if he just makes himself a target. "Whipping boy? Useless scapegoat? Hot topic of conversation?"

"If you haven't figured it out by now ...." Thanatos scoffs, looks away with a disdainful wrinkle of his nose, as if Zagreus were too stupid to even contemplate. "Anyway, it doesn't look like you'll be needing my help after all."

He disappears abruptly. Achilles turns around, making sort of a confused, sympathetic shrug.

“I hope I didn't make things worse for you there, lad.”

“Honestly," Zagreus sighs, brushing his hair out of his face, "that's more words than he's said to me since this entire thing began. So, thanks, maybe.”

“You two are close, are you not?”

"I ... thought so. He's never been this angry with me before, and I ... haven't really had a chance to explain."

He hadn't been avoiding Thanatos, exactly, but maybe some part of him knew that his friend would talk him out of it, convince him that trying to escape wasn't worth the risk, and maybe some other part of him knows that Thanatos wouldn't have been wrong. It hurts to think that this might have cost him all the effort he's put into getting closer to his elusive friend, the times when he'd allowed Zagreus to hold his hand even though he thought the gesture was ridiculous, even the one attempted kiss that ended with Thanatos suddenly needing to return to work at that exact moment.

Achilles's look of genuine sympathy is making his heart ache. "I'm surprised he can't see what this means to you, but don't fool yourself that he doesn't care," the warrior consoles him. "Thanatos wouldn't be making your troubles his own unless your companionship mattered a great deal to him."

"I ..." Zagreus trails off. He's never discussed their relationship with Achilles, and hearing him talk about it now in that deep, calm voice is making it obvious why he hadn't. He could blame the heat in his cheeks on asphodel, but he knows better. "Let's just crack some skulls, shall we?"

He hadn't meant that part literally, but the Lernean hydra gives them the opportunity. The two of them pinion its first head, then split up at opposite ends of the chamber, Zagreus dashing through the vertebrae with his spear leading the charge, Achilles focusing on one at a time until they retreat. Then Zagreus can only watch as Achilles rushes it, shoves his spearhead into the hydra's palate with an impossible thrust, then steps on its lower jaw with his sandal, cracking it loose at the joints. Zagreus winces despite himself it hisses and writhes, tearing itself apart around the shaft of the spear, then disintegrates into flame.

"And you've finished off this beast on your own?" Achilles asks, stepping back onto the hard stone.

"Well, with some help from the gods, but yes. Several times now." Never that fast, though, he thinks.

"A little Heracles." A smile is playing over the warrior's mouth. It looks almost sentimental in the shifting highlights of Asphodel. "Were I your father, I’d be telling the tale to anyone who would listen."

"If you were my father, I wouldn't have had to fight it in the first place."

To that, Achilles can only shake his head.

* * *

The sweet-smelling mists of Elysium, strewn with petals and streaks of light, cast shadows over Achilles's solemn face, deepening his frown. His steps are slow, and he casts his head from side to side in glances that seem to slow them even further, until he comes to a stop at the two great, golden doors ahead of them. His fingers curl in tension. He runs his thumb over them, a strange gesture from someone who has seemed for years an infallible fountain of calmness and surety. Zagreus can't make out exactly what he says to himself, but he would guess it's a variation on "fear is for the weak."

On the other side of the door, the warrior shades raise their weapons with a snarl. Zagreus prepares to lunge at the nearest, but before his feet can move, the shades have set down their spears and are collectively kneeling, their heads bowed. He looks from Achilles to the shades, then to Achilles again.

"Is this ... do they recognize you?" he asks in wonder.

Achilles's frown has managed to deepen. Even in his soldier's stance, spear upright and his feet prepared for battle, he seems smaller somehow, his shoulders less broad, his figure less imposing.

"Perhaps word of my coming has preceded us," he says softly.

"But some of them must be Trojans, right?"

Achilles closes his eyes for a moment and Zagreus bites down on the inside of his cheek in frustration with himself. Of course he doesn't want to talk about this, especially not in the middle of Elysium. He must have so many other things going through his mind right now, things he and Zagreus have never discussed but clearly still haunt him, memories beyond even Patroclus.

Patroclus. Even thinking the name makes his stomach churn with nervousness. Had Achilles been prepared for this when he decided to come along? Is he only thinking about that possibility now that they've gotten this far?

"I can only speak for myself," Achilles says, interrupting that thought process, "but much of the enmity I once held has faded in death. I can think of them now without hatred. And here I fool myself into thinking mine was the only war of note. I am sure many of these warriors were before my time. Let's not linger, then."

It's so quiet. Zagreus finds himself craning his neck, knuckles white on his spearshaft, waiting for a sudden motion or a swift attack that never comes. Their footsteps are soft on the wet grass, the only sound the gentle rush of the Lethe, the distant twitter of what he's come to realize are birds. They pass through two chambers of elaborate statues and soldiers scattered between them standing just as still, each bowing in reverence with their weapons lowered. Zagreus has never had a chance to see them up close without the immediacy of battle; their bluish faces are indistinct, more a memory of features than an actual countenance. Even the chariots hold themselves at bay, as though waiting on some unheard command.

Near the fountain, with no shades nearby and a breathtaking view of the gray-green canyons, finally, Achilles stops.

"I am a coward," he states quietly.

"Patroclus." Zagreus says it under his breath, knowing it didn't need to be said, but aching for him anyway.

Achilles turns to look at him for the first time since leaving Asphodel. There's a softness to his eyes, his lips parted in thought, and for a moment all Zagreus can hear is his own pulse and his breath, as if the rest of the underworld had faded to irrelevance, leaving only the two of them.

"You're so much like him, you know. Gentle despite everything."

"You really think so?" Zagreus asks, trying to keep the astonishment from his voice. He can feel his ears starting to flush warm, betraying how much the sentiment means to him. He only hopes it's not obvious.

Achilles looks away, fixing his gaze on some far-off point in the misty valley.

"i knew him from boyhood. Circumstances led us to becoming soldiers - well, some would say it was the decree of the gods. Would that I had taken the other path offered me, a long and quiet life, but I think the gods make those deals knowing full well that no young man is going to settle for peace." A short sigh, resigned. He shakes his head. "No. It's too easy to cast all the blame on the gods. My own arrogance and fear, my ambivalence. So many men died waiting for me to make up my mind."

"You didn't start the war," Zagreus offers. "I’m sure they were proud to fight for you."

"Aye, proud."

Achilles is watching one of the leaves swirl along the river, slipping under the soft current and poking up again further down. His presence seems to flicker, almost, like he's becoming less corporeal. "His last words to me were spoken in anger, you know? He came to me after his death, in anger still. I wonder if he knows ..."

"I’m sorry, sir." there's only one other thing he can think to say. "If it's too hard to be here, I can - I'm sure I can make it the rest of the way this time. You've already helped so much."

"Do you ... think less of me?"

Achilles lifts his head to regard him again, and this time he looks stricken, his brows turned up and his eyes pleading. It seems impossible that someone of his stature could possibly care about Zagreus's opinion, but he's clearly asking for it as though it matters to him.

"No, I - I d- not at all," he stammers. "I think I understand how you feel, sort of."

"How is that?"

Achilles isn't looking away, still waiting on Zagreus's words with those clear eyes intent. His throat tightens. He knows the answer, but if there was ever going to be a moment where he might betray his feelings for his mentor, this one could not be less ideal.

"To love someone who ... " he starts, then cuts off, more honest than he had meant to be. "...who's so far away," he finishes awkwardly.

The warrior seems to relax with that statement, his shoulders lowering, a little smile haunting his face. "You'll find her soon, lad. Your future is full of possibilities. I want those for you, more than you know."

His mother. Persephone. A separate pain, one he hadn't much thought about this time around but that burns just underneath the surface, catalyzing all of this. Even here in Elysium with the ghosts of his past literally surrounding him, Achilles is still thinking of Zagreus and what Zagreus wants. It floods him with an emotion he doesn't even have words for, his eyes stinging, chin starting to tremble. How could father have ever been benevolent enough to give him this man for a mentor?

"I wish there were another way," Achilles says offhandedly. He holds his spear beneath his neck and thrusts upward, but the spearhead only grazes over his jaw. He sets it at an angle on the grass for leverage and leans forward, but instead of piercing his chest, it skids to the side harmlessly.

"How fascinating. It seems your father has a sense of humor." He regards his spear with a frown. "I didn't expect this to hold outside of the house."

With that, he holds his spear out to Zagreus, who blinks, not making a connection.

"I'm not sure I can reach it myself," Achilles prompts.

"Reach what?"

A soft chuckle. "My ankle. Surely you're aware of that part of my legend."

"Oh. Right." Zagreus hadn't thought about this possibility when he offered to go it alone. He sets his own spear down on the grass and takes this one, still warm from Achilles's grip. "Which ankle was it again?"

Achilles extends his right leg, turning his sandaled foot. "You're quite a spear bearer," he says with fondness, smiling even as he prepares to be killed, "but we will need to revisit your history lessons."

The spear feels impossibly heavy in his hand. He bites down on his lips, staring at the little shadow beneath Achilles's rounded anklebone, the short strip that runs from his heel to his sculpted, flexed calf muscle. He imagines the skin separating, the tendon snapping, his mentor stumbling and falling in the grass, his eyes rolling up.

"I can't do this," he whispers. "I can't ... hurt you."

"Am I truly more fearsome than the Lernean hydra?" Achilles jests lightly, still smiling.

"It's hard enough already pushing through Meg and getting Than into trouble." Zagreus swallows. "I hate it. I hate it every time. If I had to fight past you ... I ... I don't know if I ever would have left." It's not a confession he's proud of, but it's the truth.

"I understand. Truly." Achilles takes his spear back, then rests an affectionate hand on Zagreus's head, sliding down to his shoulder. Zagreus can't meet his eyes. "Take care of that kind heart, Zagreus."

With that, Achilles maneuvers the spearhead parallel to his leg and thrusts down at an angle. It happens much faster than Zagreus was expecting. A small grunt of pain - he must not feel pain very often, it occurs to him - and a steady flow of blood soaking into the grass. Achilles drops the spear and his legs crumple beneath him. He falls first to his knees, then face-forward, tendrils of golden hair bright against the green as the wound seeps. His arm is limp at an unnatural angle, fingers upright and curled. Nausea swerves through Zagreus in a sudden burst, and he claps his hand over his mouth but Achilles is already fading, motes of light swirling and gathering into a mist, and then he's gone, spear with him.

After a while, Zagreus picks up Varatha, more to steady himself than out of any desire to fight. Soon Achilles will wade forth from the Styx and face his father's judgment. He wants to be there, to protect him somehow, but it's a childish thought; if anything, his presence will just make Hades even more spiteful. Achilles did this so that I could break free, he reminds himself. So that I could meet her. Anything less than absolute concentration now would be wasting what he's done.

He steadies himself, pushes his thoughts aside, and keeps moving. The sight of Ares’s crimson spearhead in the next chamber comes as a welcome distraction, at least until the god of war starts to talk.

“Oh,” Ares says, scanning the area behind Zagreus. “Has he retreated again? I can't say I'm surprised."

"Lord Ares, I appreciate the help, but if you’re going to insult -"

"How much do you know about him? Truly?” The deity’s arms are crossed, his eyes narrowed like arrow slits in a battlement. “Because I can tell you, this kindly tutor act is a thin veneer indeed."

Zagreus is hardly even listening. Wars are messy, bloody, and besides, it was all in the past. There’s nothing his mentor could do to cause him to doubt who he is.

"With all respect, Ares, sir,” Zagreus objects, “I’d rather talk to Achilles about this than hear it secondhand."

That laugh again, dry and arrogant. “Ask him about Troilus sometime. The child he murdered. Cut off his head and bled him out over the temple of Apollo. A defenseless boy who stood in the way of his glory. He killed my son and daughter, too, did you know that, Zagreus?"

"Okay, well,” he says cheerily, putting on an air of indifference despite the chill in his blood, “it's been nice chatting but I'm going to pass on this boon, if you don't mind."

Zagreus heads for the stadium as the god of war’s voice continues behind him unacknowledged.

"Tell me, son of Hades. Given infinite time, do you suppose a man can change, or will he simply become more of what he already is?"

* * *

Zagreus reaches the surface, solid blinding white, snow hissing under his feet as it melts. It takes him a moment to find his balance, for his eyes to adjust.

"You're alone," Hades announces. "How fitting. I'm surprised he didn't send you in his armor."

"You've no right to speak of him that way," Zagreus hisses, anger uncoiling itself from all the places where it's been strangling him. "You've no right to speak of him at all."

"Who was it that brought him here, boy? I can send him away without another word."

"Shut up and fight me."

He holds out as long as he can, swift jabs through his father's defenses, dodging behind the snow-covered boulders, one solid strike that Achilles would have been proud of that rips on his red chiton and earns a grunt and a snarled "boy." He lets his feet glide over the ice, nimbly avoiding the sweep and heft of the twin-pointed spear, all of his lessons combined here in one final battle. He thinks he almost has it - Hades's back turns, the butt of the spear embedded in the snow, his father calling forth a command - and he rushes forth with both hands on Varatha at the same time that Hades whirls at him. The twin spearpoints catch him in the stomach, rip through up to his sternum, and all around him the white turns red.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter 1: sadchilles  
> chapter 2: madchilles  
> chapter 3: brief patroclus interlude  
> chapter 4: the virgin zagreus and the chadchilles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I know the lambent plume doesn't work this way but we will ignore that for the sake of convenience.
> 
> **!!CW!!: there is a contextual, fantastical element of noncon in this particular chapter; please avoid if you're averse to that theme.**

The house of Hades is quiet when Zagreus emerges, a unnatural silence that hangs like heavy fog behind the background sussurus of wandering shades. His father’s desk is still empty. Not even Cerberus is in his corner to lend a little patch of comfort. It starts to feel less like home every time he returns, less familiar and more foreboding, even here in the same hallways he remembers running through as a kid, the urns he hid behind playing with his brothers (no, half-brothers). Zagreus finds himself standing on the stairs with the Styx lapping at his heels, swept away in thought, staring at the flame in the brazier and remembering how even the moonlight had made his eyes burn.

Can’t stand here forever. He looks up to find Hypnos staring at him; with a nervous hum, he lifts his ever-present scroll to cover his face.

“Uh, hey, Hypnos,” he attempts as a greeting. The closer he walks, the closer the scroll moves toward Hypnos’s pale face, until it’s practically touching his nose.

“No! Nothing’s wrong!” Hypnos yelps. “Why would you even ask that?”

“I … didn’t?”

“You didn’t?” The scroll lowers somewhat until he can meet Hypnos’s eyes, unusually wide and alert. “I mean, of course you didn’t! Because everything’s fine.”

It’s not hard to imagine the scene that must have erupted here when Achilles was discovered in Tartarus. He can almost see Hades pounding on his desk, Nyx pleading for compassion and evoking none, the array of newly-minted shades quaking in formless fear. And Hypnos in the middle of it.

“I’m guessing Father had one of his rages,” Zagreus mutters. “I’m sorry you have to hear those.”

“Well, uh,” Hypnos squeaks behind the parchment, “the funny thing is, they’ve been happening so much lately that I’m almost getting used to them!”

The strain on “almost” sends a guilty shiver through his heart. Yet another casualty of the mess he’s turned this house into. He takes a deep breath and resolves to find some way to make this up to Hypnos when he can, when he’s safe on the surface and all this anger has dissipated.

“I’m sorry, again,” he says uselessly, just to burn off some of this guilt. “For … Father being like this.”

“You know, it’s not all bad.” Hypnos giggles in discomfort, one of the most unsettling sounds Zagreus has ever heard. “Everyone spends so much time arguing about you these days, they barely yell at me anymore!”

Zagreus doesn’t have a response for that. He manages a smile and walks away somehow feeling even worse than he had coming out of the Styx. Self-indulgent misery clings to him like a damp cloud as he paces to his room. No Nyx. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?

His bedroom is also a mess that he’s created entirely by himself, but unlike everything outside, it’s always been this way. Achilles is standing in front of the bookshelf with his back to Zagreus. The sight of his green robe closes Zagreus’s throat for a moment in a sudden clash of totally discordant emotions; relief that he’s not dead, fear of what happens next, that constant little tightness in his chest that’s always there when he’s around Achilles.

“Did you make it?” the warrior asks without turning around.

“I … no. But I got so close,” he adds, breathless all of a sudden. “Father was … you should have seen it. I almost had him this time. I felt like you were with me.”

He hadn’t meant to add that last part; it just snuck out on its own. It feels like how he’d bragged to Achilles when he was young about some silly thing he’d managed to do, like beat Cerberus in a foot race or climb all the way to the top of a statue. Achilles would pretend to look impressed every time, bend down to make eye contact and ask him to recount the tale, remaining in rapt attention until Zagreus was finished. ‘Here comes the champion,’ he would greet him afterward, bowing in deep respect as Zagreus laughed. It hurts to think about now.

“In a manner, I am with you whenever you fight. Watching your finesse with Varatha was like watching myself as a lad, only without …”

Achilles doesn’t finish that thought. He turns to face Zagreus and is apparently holding one of his books, a binding he doesn’t recognize. As Zagreus watches, he sets it down gently on top of the nearest crooked stack of tomes, leaving the spine open.

“Your father will return shortly,” he says. “I wanted to speak with you first.”

His face is passive, devoid of emotion, as if the recent death had stripped some of his vitality. Zagreus searches him for some trace of what he might be thinking, but it’s like staring at a still portrait.

“Achilles, about – “

His mentor holds up a hand to silence him.

"What I did, I did of my own accord. I would do it again regardless of the consequences, none of which are your fault or your responsibility to correct,” stressing the last words. “I want your efforts to focus on escape and finding your mother. Can you promise me that you will not try to alter the outcome of whatever happens next?"

Then he must have some idea of his father’s sentence. Dread soaks through Zagreus like a drowning wave.

"I can't,” Zagreus whispers. “You know I can't."

Achilles glances at the open book, then down at the floor. His voice is distant. "In my time, I killed so many sons. Sons of men, sons of gods. At first I found it a bitter irony that your father should want me, of all men, to teach his only child the ways of war. But I owe him thanks for giving a purpose to my years in death, and to you most of all, for your friendship."

"You’re talking like I’m never going to see you again." For the second time in this conversation, he feels like a child, pulling on Achilles's arm to keep him from going somewhere he can't go.

"Achilles, son of Thetis and Peleus," comes his father's booming echo from the great hall.

For a moment, the great warrior hesitates. His lips tighten and a ripple of tension runs through his neck. Then he nods to himself and heads toward the great hall with a slow, measured stride. Zagreus follows at a distance. There's nothing he can say or do. He owes it to Achilles just to watch, to be there.

Hades has returned to his throne with Nyx beside him, her eyes downcast, both hands clutching at the long purple folds of her himation in a way that almost looks like mourning. Hypnos is watching with his wooly cloak completely wrapped around him, leaving only his face peeking out.

Achilles stops at Hades's desk. He lowers to his knees, then leans forward on his elbows and bows his head, long hair pooling beneath him.

"I offered you an arrangement," Hades states.

"You were gracious, Lord Hades."

"And you understood the terms of that arrangement as I presented them to you."

"The terms were just and equitable, Lord Hades."

"Then you violated that arrangement in an act of insubordination designed to weaken my influence and further corrupt my offspring."

"I did, Lord Hades. And I’ll do it again."

He can hear Nyx gasp, see his father's fingers tighten on the quill hard enough to snap it. It feels like he's been struck; all the air rushes from his lungs. Zagreus has to lean on the wall to keep from swaying.

"I will help him escape," Achilles continues quietly. "I will stop at nothing. If I am allowed to remain, my every thought and action will be in conspiracy against you. This leaves you with no choice."

"What are you doing?" Zagreus cries. Neither Achilles nor Hades reacts to his outburst; they remain in absolute silence. When Hades speaks again, his voice is measured, but the anger beneath each word is unmistakable.

"I’m disappointed in your lack of judgment. It seems to be a contagion spreading within this house. However, your services are too valuable for me to render this punishment permanent. Instead, I have devised a corrective measure that will last for a dynamic span of time, based entirely on your progress, which will be defined as improvement in the qualities of humility, fidelity, and obedience. This contract will not be held in the archives; rather, I am storing it on my person, so that its terms cannot be interfered with or altered. Do you understand, Achilles, son of Thetis and Peleus?"

"I understand, and I am grateful."

Task complete, Hades seals the scroll in front of him and moves it aside.

"Shades, escort this man to the arranged location."

Achilles is gone before he can even come to his feet.

"Next," Hades calls.

* * *

Zagreus stalks to the courtyard with his jaw clenched. He pulls the faintly glowing red feather from its case and tucks it behind his ear, like an oversized laurel leaf. Strapping Aegis to his arm, he drops through the window into Tartarus, and the little winged beacon is already waiting.

It's a long shot, but the Olympians have been nothing but helpful so far. If it doesn't work, he'll strip this place down to the roots.

"You need me, coz?"

Hermes tilts his head and taps his sandaled foot in a rhythm fast enough to blur.

"Lord Hermes," Zagreus begins, trying to keep his voice level, "I understand that you serve often as a guide, both in my father's realm and above ground."

"That’s right. It's in the job description. Can't take you up to the surface, though. Wish I could." Hermes pouts briefly for effect. "Why, were you looking to go somewhere else?"

"It's ... Achilles. He's been taken somewhere, and ... I wondered if you could help me find him."

"Oh! That's right," Hermes prattles. "Heard he'd stepped in it recently. Too bad. Quite a guy. Anyway, he's got his own little room in Erebus. Can't take you straight there, you understand, but I can show you how to get in."

Erebus. It figures that his father would lock him away somewhere out of Zagreus's path. He's never even seen what it looks like in there. Not that it matters; he'd dig through the stone with his fingernails if there was a chance Achilles might be underneath.

"You ready?"

Hermes extends a hand with an elaborate flourish. Already impatient, he wiggles his fingers, and Zagreus reaches out to him. As soon as he touches the god's palm, the entire world around him is reduced to a blur, streaks of colors and indecipherable sounds rushing past his face. He struggles to pull in a breath, and by the time he exhales they've stopped - another nondescript corner of Tartarus, green pillars and cracked stone. Heatless flames emanate from a hole in the floor, the only feature out of place.

“Keep my plume and you’ll be able to see it. You won’t need the lift next time.”

“What -“

“Can’t stay,” Hermes is saying, already fading into the distance.

Tentatively, Zagreus touches his foot to the flames. Either they don’t burn, or they’re just as hot as he is. He adds a little more weight to his foot and the sudden force that pulls him down is overwhelming.

Where Hermes had shown him a dazzling spectrum of lights, here everything is blackness – he can’t see or hear or taste or feel, just floating – and it ends as abruptly as it began, with Zagreus deposited on a black tile floor in an empty room. Instead of walls here, there are ornate columns of black and gold, the spaces between them amorphous, punctuated by distant rows of small blue flame. The effect is isolating and empty. It feels like being buried, somehow, or trapped inside a strange closet.

Lying in the center of the floor is Achilles. His eyes are closed and his arms lie awkwardly bent at his side, as they had when he was dead. With a cold clutch of fear, Zagreus drops his shield and kneels next to his mentor, the rest of this place suddenly irrelevant. He doesn’t respond to a gentle shake or a harder push. His head lolls to the side. Zagreus holds a palm over his face and can feel faint, warm breaths; it had always seemed strange to him that the dead would go through the motions of breathing, but he knows that Achilles pants after a long spar, coughed and choked once when Zagreus errantly jabbed him in the throat with Stygius, and he wants to feel it to make sure it’s there.

“Achilles?” he tries. The sound of it echoes, coming back distorted. Zagreus touches his hair, hesitant, moving a golden strand from his face to join with the waves bunched beneath his neck. “I’m here.”

Achilles doesn’t respond. His chest rises and falls with a barely perceptible motion; the rest of him is still.

“Why’d you do it?” Zagreus asks him, voice cracking.

He’s found him and it doesn’t matter. Whatever his father has done goes deeper than this. Anger wells up and chokes him, drowning out his guilt, louder than everything else. With fury, Zagreus snatches Aegis from the floor and bashes it into a pillar, cracking the stone again and again until it collapses. Then he throws it at a distant column, calculating the angle and baring his neck as it ricochets. His spine snaps back with a hard crunch and he’s weightless again, senseless, as the blanket of the Styx rushes up to meet him.

* * *

_I have to keep trying. I have to keep trying. He didn’t give up on me. I won’t give up on him._

“Hey, Hypnos?” Zagreus asks, squeezing blood from his hair. “It's been a while since you've taken, well, a formal break, hasn't it?”

Hypnos taps his quill to his lips, thinking. Zagreus catches a glimpse of the inside of his scroll and there’s nothing written save for some sketches of vines running up the side and what might be a doodle of Cerberus. “Well, uh, I haven't really been counting, but if you say so, then probably!”

“And since you're the god of sleep,” Zagreus continues, “I was wondering if you could take a look at my ... pillows, and see if they need ... rearranging.” This cover story is already making no sense. He winces. Too late to change it now. “For - for proper sleep habits and ... optimal comfort?”

“It sounds a little bit like you're propositioning me. Now, you wouldn't be doing that, would you? Because that would just be ...” Hypnos giggles again, that same uncomfortable noise from before. “I mean, I know the family resemblance is strong, but –“

“No, no, no,” Zagreus reassures him quickly. How could he possibly have - “Nothing like that. Just a ... chat between friends.”

“Oh! Well, in that case, sure? Why not?”

Hypnos floats along behind Zagreus, his cloak dragging on the floor, picking up a flock of white petals. As they pass, Nyx regards them both with a curious glance, but says nothing. This might be the first time Hypnos has seen the inside of his room since they were kids; he’s never seen where Hypnos goes when he’s off duty, but imagines it can’t be much tidier.

“Your bed's a bit messy, but it does look comfortable,” Hypnos offers, scratching behind his ear with the quill. “Not sure I have much else to add.”

“Sorry, Hypnos.” Zagreus leads him further back towards the mirror. “I was just trying to get you out of earshot of my father.”

“Oh. Okay.” A quizzical look. “Are you sure you're not propositioning me?”

“Achilles,” Zagreus says, dropping the pretense.

A little tremor runs through Hypnos’s otherwise placid face. He blinks rapidly.

“Achilles. Yup. Definitely ... definitely used to live here.”

“I saw him in Erebus,” Zagreus explains, trying not to focus on the image of Achilles laid out on the floor, “and it looked like he was ... asleep, sort of. Is there - do you know anything about it? About what's happening to him?”

“Um.” He can see Hypnos’s eyes darting toward the door. “I really shouldn't say...”

“Of course. The last thing I want is for anyone else to get into trouble on my account. I'll take a hint, or a riddle even. Whatever you can give me.”

Hypnos had been his best friend when they were young, back when Megaera was too terrifying to contemplate and before he had understood Thanatos enough to make an effort to get to know him. He had never seemed to grow up with the rest of them, always in his own world, still daydreaming while Zagreus was committed to his weapons practice, Than to his growing responsibilities, Meg to the surface world and the study of mortal failures. Despite that gulf between them, he’s always laughed at Zagreus’s jokes, and for his part, Zagreus has rarely joined in with the mockery directed at him. He hopes it’s enough for Hypnos to trust him here.

“Well, ah, not that I was looking or anything, but - that keepsake drawer of yours?” Hypnos shrugs, holds up his hands. “I just, you know, get the feeling there's something in there that could possibly, in some cases, uh, mess with dreams? I mean, don't quote me on that.”

A rush of gratitude. Hypnos’s neck is already on the chopping block and he’s still willing to help.

“Thank you, Hypnos. Really.” It feels like every conversation he has ends with an apology or a ‘thank you’. He wonders morosely if they’ll be able to joke again when this is all over. If he comes back; if he ever sees Hypnos again.

“Back to work,” Hypnos squeaks, and almost collides with Nyx in the doorway. “Oh, hi, mom! We were just talking about pillows and stuff! See you later!”

Nyx brushes across the room, clasping her hands in front of her. She stops in front of Zagreus and holds his gaze for a long, purposeful moment. Then she slides her arms around him and pulls him close, a startling and rare expression of affection. Zagreus hugs her back tentatively, patting her on the shoulder. This isn’t something she does; his heart races in apprehension, hands hovering, awkward.

“I disagree with the severity of your father's punishment,” she whispers into his ear. “If only I could wrap my shawl around you both and keep you in the comfort of darkness. Then you both might find a measure of peace.”

“I ... that sounds wonderful,” Zagreus murmurs, picking up on what he hopes is a message.

She disengages from him with all the elegance of royalty and finds her exit quickly, leaving behind the faint, sweet scent of frankincense. There’s only one thing left to do. He tucks Hermes’s feather behind his ear again and wraps Nyx’s dark shawl over his shoulders. Stygius comes with him this time, heavy and warm under his grip. If Achilles’s punishment is inside a dream, then he’s going in armed, and he’s not leaving without answers.

* * *

The Erebus gate waits, quietly burning, in the same place it was last time. Strange that it doesn't move itself to confound him like everything else in this infernal maze. Hermes must have marked it for him, somehow, some connection with the plume. Zagreus hesitates for a moment before touching the gate, letting it lift his body into the disorienting swirl of blackness.

When he lands, he comes to his feet on cold, rocky ground. The night sky of the surface surrounds him, vast and startling; he has to steady himself past a disorienting lurch in his stomach at the unfamiliarity of it. It looks like it goes on forever, like it could swallow him whole.

Before him, Achilles is standing tall, resplendent in full bronze armor, holding the spear that gave him his reputation. It points directly at Zagreus, who looks down at himself to see a filthy, mud-stained white tunic, small flames sputtering from his bare feet on the wet stones beneath him. They're on a riverbank, clear water rushing furiously past at a tempo far beyond the Styx. He's lost his sword and his belt. Something's not right here.

"Zagreus?"

As soon as the word leaves his mouth, Achilles lifts the spear and brings it down with terrifying speed. Zagreus moves before he even realizes what's happening. He throws himself to the ground at Achilles's feet, the spear skidding into the dirt barely an inch behind him.

He tries to stand, but his limbs refuse to move. Instead, he can feel himself reaching up as though being pulled by a string. Despite all of his attempts to stop his arm, to pull it back, one hand finds its way to Achilles's thigh, clinging with a desperate strength. His body is moving without him, playing out some preassigned role in this nightmare.

"Achilles," he manages to force out through this awkward posture. "What is this? What’s happening?"

Achilles is looking down at him from beneath his helmet. His eyes are wide and filled with pain.

"I told you not to come," he says in a strangled voice. "This is my punishment to bear."

With all of his strength, Zagreus is trying to wrench himself away, move his arms, his head, anything. His body is completely unresponsive to his own commands. The only thing he can control is his voice and his gaze. Everything else is rigid, locked in place, as though he were trapped inside a statue.

"I can't move," he gasps, panic bleeding into his composure. "I can't - I’m trying to get up and -"

"You’re not supposed to," comes Achilles's quiet reply. "Lycaon didn't."

"Who’s Lycaon?"

"Someone I killed a long time ago."

"What -"

Zagreus feels his body slump forward, out of his control. His arms stretch out on the ground before Achilles in supplication. Before he can say anything else, a blade slices into his neck with sudden, cruel force. Hot blood fills his mouth and nose and he chokes on it, pushing up on his hands only for Achilles to seize him by the foot and drag him into the river. The last image he can make out before red takes over is Achilles's face, hazy through the bloodstained water, contorted in grief.

* * *

_This time I know what to expect. I can get through to him this time._

Zagreus stops for a moment to adjust his belt in front of the mirror. His eyes catch on the book Achilles had been reading, still open to the page where he’d left it. What had he been looking for in there before his appointment with his father?

It’s a history text; he vaguely remembers a discussion with Achilles about studying more recent events so Zagreus could better understand the motivations of the world above. He had blown Achilles off in favor of more weapons practice. Useless to regret that now, he tells himself, pushing back the reflexive wave of guilt; when he comes back, there’ll be time for lessons again, and Zagreus will be all ears.

One of the names looks familiar. Troilus. Ares had said something about a Troilus, hadn't he? He skims the page, looking for clues about Achilles’s punishment, something that might make sense.

_…the young and much adored son of King Priam of Troy, brother of Paris, Hector, Deiphobus and Polydorus. The child spent much time with horses, delighting in their company …. in order that Troy should fall, it had been decreed, Troilus could not reach his full adult years lest he become too formidable an opponent ….. under the cover of night came godlike Achilles, surprising the child as he watered his beloved horse. In terror for his life did Troilus ride, and ruthlessly did swift-footed Achilles find him and slay him despite his tender years … headless, dismembered, cut to pieces at the foot of the temple …_

Zagreus shuts the book abruptly. It doesn’t make a difference. It shouldn’t. He did what he had to do to end the war. The Trojans probably killed children too (does that make it right?) and Achilles doesn’t glorify it or even talk about it (because he’s ashamed?) and Zagreus has no idea what war is like and no right to judge what his mentor did (mutilating a child). No. This is just a distraction and he doesn’t have time to think about it.

He pushes himself into the courtyard and back to Tartarus. It takes him a moment to will his foot to hover over the flames, his nerves already buzzing, jangling under his skin; then he closes his eyes and waits for the strange, weightless feeling to pull him downward.

He doesn't land. His feet aren't touching anything. He's on the back of some animal, moving impossibly fast, wet air whipping against his face, soaking his chiton. Both fists are buried tight in the animal's dark hair, fighting to hang on. This must be a horse - he's seen them in statues, paintings - but where is Achilles?

Even if he could tell his body to move, in his abrupt terror, he wouldn't know what to do. The horse is clattering beneath him, its enormous barrel-shaped back rippling and flexing under his legs. It feels horribly like he could fall at any second and yet somehow he's still upright. Finally, the dream allows him to glance over his shoulder and Achilles is in close pursuit, on his own white mount, a blue cloth draped over its back and strings in the animal's mouth that lead to his gloved hands.

"No!" Achilles shouts over the wind. "I won't have you see this!"

Troilus, he realizes with a stab of fear. The horse boy. The murder. Achilles must be reliving his memories of the past. This is his punishment? To have to see these things again? And somehow, by coming here with the shawl, Zagreus is being forced into reenacting the memories with him. There has to be a way out, a way to help him, like Nyx said, if he could just get down from this terrifying animal -

"I’m not leaving you here," Zagreus cries, hoping Achilles can hear him through the tumult.

Then his horse falters, stumbling, and in one swift moment Achilles catches up alongside him, dust flying from beneath his mount's hooves. He reaches out and grabs Zagreus by the hair, yanking him backwards with a burst of pain. His legs dangle in midair and he can feel his body kicking, thrashing, like a child in a tantrum, as the horse runs off without him.

"Please," Achilles begs, his voice raw. "I don't want to hurt you. I have no control over - I can't - I can't stop it."

He's just as locked into these motions as Zagreus. He can't stop killing him any more than Zagreus can stop dying.

As suddenly as he had seized him, Achilles lets him fall. Zagreus crumples to the ground, coughing as his face smashes into the dirt and he breathes it in. He rolls over onto his back and the warrior has dismounted, looking down at him with his hair tied back and helmet covering his face, almost unrecognizable. It's just Achilles. This is just a dream - an illusion -

"Please," Achilles repeats, quieter this time. "You once said that to fight past me would be an impossible pain. I can bear this alone, but -"

He cuts off with a swift kick to Zagreus's ribs. Zagreus bites down on his lips to keep from crying out.

" -when these phantoms from my past have your face -"

Two more kicks, and Zagreus curls into himself, knees to his chin, a useless defense. As hard as he tries, he can't make his body move from this position beyond a short jerk of a shoulder. There has to be some way to escape this memory, to break out of the predetermined sequence of events. If he could just catch his breath, concentrate -

"Zagreus, don't make me do this again."

The pain in Achilles's voice is obvious. A soft metallic _snick_ , and Zagreus winces in preparation for what he knows is coming. The blade hacks at his throat, severing muscle and cracking bone. Death comes sooner this time, a red cloud lifting him from the dream-body, leaving Achilles behind with his sword tipped low to face the rest of the memory alone.

* * *

“Boy,” Hades addresses him, still fresh from the Styx, before he can slink away back to the courtyard. “I don't know where you disappeared to, but don't try that trick again."

Zagreus ignores him, but the thought burns in the back of his mind. Hades doesn't know what he was doing. The shawl must keep him concealed, at least in Erebus; or maybe this is Nyx’s roundabout way of helping Achilles. Either way, he’s grateful. His father can’t stop him if he can’t see him.

What’s stopping him is how little he knows about Achilles’s punishment. He can get inside the dream, but he’s still trapped by its internal logic, playing out a script he doesn’t even understand. He had read about Troilus’s death just before entering last time, though, and the dream had shown it to him – could Zagreus be changing them somehow?

Zagreus is so engrossed in trying to put the pieces together that he walks directly into Aphrodite’s beacon. A warm, radiant light shimmers, playing over the decrepit walls of Tartarus with a pinkish hue.

"Oh, poor little godling," Aphrodite coos. "I can smell it on you. It's pungent. You poor thing."

“What?” He checks under his arms, the front of his chiton. “Is there something-”

“Not there, silly boy.” She curls a hand beneath her chin, pouting. “I can’t believe I missed Achilles! But you’ll tell him hello for me, won’t you? Hermes says you’ve been going to see him.”

Of course the gossip must have spread among the Olympians. The great hero of the Trojan War and the son of Hades fighting to escape the underworld together; it sounds like myth already.

“I … I’ll pass that along,” he offers weakly.

Aphrodite looks him up and down, taking her time, from the flames of his feet to the laurels hovering in his hair. The face she makes is hard to read; Zagreus doesn’t know whether to feel flattered or confused. It’s hard to maintain composure for long around someone this beautiful and this naked, especially when that someone is staring directly at him and smiling.

“I think I have just the thing,” she tells him with confidence. She reaches somewhere behind her back – Zagreus can’t tell exactly where – and holds out her hand. A golden apple.

“It’s … an apple,” Zagreus says out loud for some reason.

“Well?”

Not wanting to offend any more Olympians than he has to, Zagreus takes the apple from her. It’s lighter than he thought it would be, skin smooth and unblemished, reflecting Aphrodite’s light with an iridescent streak in the gold that moves as he rolls it in his palm.

“This isn’t going to cause anyone to behave strangely and unnaturally, is it?” he has to ask. “Because sometimes your boon, um, it-“

“Oh, no. It doesn’t work like that. There’s nothing unnatural involved. Quite the opposite.” Aphrodite sighs and shakes her head, causing the voluminous coils of hair over her chest to move in a way that makes Zagreus look politely up at the ceiling. “I know I have a reputation for coyness, love, but I’ve no desire to hurt either of you. I want you both happy."

Zagreus is about to ask who she’s talking about. He decides instead to close his mouth. He can make excuses to himself all he wants, but the literal goddess of love will see through them in a heartbeat, and the more he says to incriminate himself, the more involved she’ll want to be.

"Thank you, Lady Aphrodite," he says in a stilted voice, "for ... thinking of me."

“The next time you see him, take a bite and think of me, all right, darling?”

She’s gone before he can think of anything else to say. The apple goes inside one of the pouches on his belt; whatever it does, this is not the time to find out.

He has to concentrate this time. He'd gotten his shoulder to move a little when he was on the ground as Troilus. Maybe if he pushes back harder against the dream, if he can get Achilles to fight it too…. then what? What's the plan? Just keep coming back and hope that something changes?

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Zagreus confesses to the Erebus gate.

Bracing himself for violence, or horses, or some other horror, Zagreus steps inside and waits to rematerialize inside Achilles's mind.

This time he lands in what appears to be a wooden hut, thin latticed walls with cloth barely keeping out the night wind. Oil lamps are scattered around on the dirt floor, illuminating an ornate wooden chair against the back wall, a thick pile of sheep and goat skins that might serve as a bed. It looks like a soldier's makeshift camp. He can move his eyes down far enough to see that he's in another dirty tunic. Achilles is standing before him with his bare arms crossed over his chest. He wears no helmet or armor, only a short red chiton that reaches to his knee, much like Zagreus's own.

It takes a moment for Achilles to register Zagreus. His eyes widen and his jaw works, an unmistakable expression of fear.

"No," he breathes. "No, Zagreus, not here. Not now."

Whatever this is, it doesn't seem violent. Zagreus wonders what could be so much worse about this memory to make Achilles react like this. After being wrenched from a horse, beheaded and drowned, he's just grateful to be indoors for once.

Then he feels his own hand reach up to unfasten the brooch at his shoulder, a slow, unsteady movement. The linen falls around his waist, bunching up. Achilles is staring at him in a way that makes his ears redden, terror mixed with some unreadable emotion burning in his blue eyes.

"Zagreus, if you have any power to escape, I am begging you not to witness this."

"I have to keep trying," he says, his own voice coming out high-pitched and unsure. "Even if -"

Achilles reaches forward to tug at the thin girdle tied around his waist, pulling it free. The loose cloth slides down his legs and onto his bare feet. Just like that, Zagreus is completely naked. Achilles closes his eyes, sparing him the shame of being exposed. All he can feel is cold. His skin prickles from the chill air, every little breeze and rustle sending a sharp ache through his unadjusted nerves, though his body won’t even let him shiver beyond a chatter in his jaw. This is worse than being murdered. This is a thousand times worse.

"I’m so sorry," Achilles rasps, on the verge of tears. "I can't stop it. I'm so sorry."

He takes a rough grasp of Zagreus's chin, tilting his face up. Even in the middle of this, Zagreus’s heart surges from the contact.

"I’m so sorry -"

The kiss, when it comes, is forceful enough to make Zagreus stumble backwards. Achilles's lips are pressed tight together against Zagreus' mouth, unable to prevent the kiss but clearly trying to strip any suggestion of intimacy from this, whatever passion it may have carried in life. A calloused hand slips down to his neck and closes around it, not quite hard enough to choke, but enough to tighten his airway. Zagreus barely registers the discomfort over how badly he wants to respond, to open his mouth and let him in, to invite whatever comes next as long as it means more of this, more of Achilles touching him anywhere. He tries to savor these little points of contact, the dry pressure of his mentor's lips, even the pain of his thumb digging into the tendon next to his windpipe.

Achilles pulls away, his eyes still clenched shut. His grip on Zagreus's neck loosens for a moment, as if briefly repentant, and then returns with a vengeance as he lifts Zagreus off the floor like a child's doll and heaves him onto the pile of skins. Zagreus lands on his elbows and is immediately reminded of his inability to move as he tries to pull his hands downward to cover his nakedness. Instead, going against all of his instincts, this dream-body actually spreads its legs further apart. He can feel his heart shivering, quaking, the rush of his cursed red blood as it runs downward. Is this his reaction, or was it the person from Achilles's memory? It seems impossible that anyone could lie here naked at the forefront of the great warrior's attention without responding somehow.

Achilles steps forward, looming over him, all bronze and gold set alight in the flicker of the oil lamps. His broad shoulders are rolled back and his head lifted high in a pose that would seem arrogant if not for the blind expression of pain on his face. He slips the pin from his chiton's shoulder fastening and throws it to the ground. Zagreus’s breath stops for a moment. All he can do is take him in: the way his long hair straggles over his chest, his muscles golden-furred and taut, the twin grooves that run beneath his strong hips and disappear under the red linen that still hangs from his belt. It almost hurts to look at him.

"He was a prostitute from Pedasus," Achilles whispers, closed eyelids trembling. "I… used him. I was …. not kind."

Achilles steps over him and kneels, straddling him with a leg on either side of his chest. His bare thighs clench against Zagreus’s ribs, firm and cold in contrast to his flushed skin. This is wrong. This is completely wrong. Achilles doesn’t want this; he won't even open his eyes to acknowledge him. All the times he's imagined this, being held down like this, Achilles on top of him gleaming and solid and perfect – but always he had wanted it, too, at least in his dreams. Now the Fates have chewed that up and given it back to him in a nightmare.

When Achilles's eyes finally open, they're bloodshot, rimmed with tears.

"I would never," he breathes. "Not you. I would never."

"I know," Zagreus whispers, beginning to hate himself.

Then Achilles shifts, and an unmistakable heft presses against his stomach. Achilles is erect. His focus shatters, thoughts flying in a thousand different directions. Zagreus has never felt this aroused in his entire life. It feels like he could actually die from it. His breath is coming out short and fast beneath Achilles's weight, a black haze swimming around the edges of his vision. He opens his mouth to try to say something and has to close it quickly to keep from whimpering.

_This isn’t meant for me. Achilles doesn’t want this. He doesn't want me like this. This is his punishment. He regrets this and it’s hurting him and he would never touch me this way -_

Achilles reaches out to brush Zagreus’s face, and his eyes close again as if he knows what's coming.

"Gods on Olympus forgive me."

His thumb slides past Zagreus's lips, pulling his jaw down slightly. Zagreus holds as still as he can, barely breathing, but he can feel his body starting to move again against his will, acting out what this prostitute must have done. His hand fastens on Achilles’s wrist and his head bobs slightly up and down, making all the right motions even though he’s not allowing his mouth to do anything. Achilles thrusts his thumb back further, scraping against his teeth, and this time Zagreus can’t keep a little moan from escaping, a hot flush of embarrassment stealing down his face. He’s trying so hard to restrain himself for Achilles’s sake and it has to stop, now, before he loses it completely – how can this feel so good when he knows what it’s doing to his mentor?

When Achilles pulls his hand away, dragging Zagreus's lower lip, he sucks in a deep breath and forces himself to concentrate. This is a dream just like the other two. He came here to fight, to break free. It doesn’t matter what’s going on here - Achilles doesn't want to do this - doesn't want him like this -

"That’s it," Zagreus cries with sudden volume, surprising himself. Achilles flinches visibly even with his eyes shut. The words start pouring out, desperate.

"You’d never… you'd never do this. Not to me. It’s not real. This isn’t real.” He’s just babbling now, out of his mind. “It already happened. It’s in the past. You can fight back. You can fight anything. You're the - the greatest warrior who ever lived."

"I can fight it," Achilles murmurs, as if trying to convince himself. His hand is about to return with two fingers, but the motion is jerky, halting. He stops right before reaching Zagreus's mouth and hovers, his entire arm shaking.

"It’s working!" Zagreus shouts. All of his arousal, all of this ridiculous useless buzzing energy pumping through his veins – he can use it to push back against the dream. He summons all of his strength into his neck, trying to force it to move, and manages to lift his head an inch off of the sheepskin before realizing that Achilles has him trapped. Even if he wrests back control of his body, he’d be stuck here on his back. It's up to Achilles now.

“Just – let it go. It’s not real,” he begs. “Let go and come with me.”

Achilles is breathing hard, seemingly deep in concentration. Every time he inhales, his stiff cock brushes against Zagreus's chest from beneath the fabric of his chiton. Zagreus bites down on his lips, trying not to think about the delirious sensation of it, or what happens if the warrior stands up and Zagreus’s own aching arousal becomes obvious beneath him. There’s no time to worry about it – they’re so close to breaking through -

"Let go," the warrior repeats like a mantra. "Let go."

A shift in the air, like a crackle of Zeus’s lightning, and then all he can see is white, digging into his head, searing behind his eyes. He winces, scrunching up his face in pain.

When he can see again, the soldier's hut is gone. In its place are the gleaming black tile and golden columns of Erebus, the same oppressive atmosphere of stillness. Achilles kneels on top of him, but in his long sea-green robe and chlamys, the fabric piled awkwardly over Zagreus's chest, which is wrapped in his own red chiton. He scuttles backward on his hands at the same time that Achilles rises and steps away, putting a quick distance between their forced intimacy. Neither of them can find words for a long moment.

"This is the last time," Achilles tells him finally. His voice is low and quiet. If there is any trace of his previous arousal left, it doesn't show. "No more interference."

"Nyx -" Zagreus has to clear his throat, tense as it's been. He swallows. "Nyx's shawl. It lets me inside. Maybe if you wore it…. you wouldn't have to suffer like this."

"Zagreus." Achilles can't look at him. His light blue eyes stare, unfixed, at the featureless expanse beyond the colonnade. Hearing his name in this low timbre, after what they've just been through, sends a shiver through Zagreus's skin. It sounds like a completely different word now.

"I know that it's in your nature to want to help. And I hate to ask you to ... to dull that kindness, that gentleness that so sets you apart. But I cannot remain in your house, and you must not return to me here."

He's grateful for the burst of anger that follows, burning the last traces of lust away. "Why? Because you cared enough to help me? Because Father can't stand it when his lackeys don't do exactly what he wants?"

"Because when you come here, you make everything worse." Achilles covers his face with his hand, digging into his temples, like this conversation is physically painful. “And these memories … you knew me only as a changed man. I never wanted you to see this side of me. I hoped never to have to explain these things I’d done. I wanted to ... to keep you in your innocence."

"I'd never think less of you," Zagreus retorts, aghast. "Nothing could ever change that."

Achilles doesn’t say anything. He looks so distraught, breathing hard, leaning into his hand with his shoulders raised and hair falling through his fingers, that the question Zagreus wants so badly to ask hovers in his throat, and he hesitates before letting it out.

"Achilles, sir …. why did you say all that to Father? That you'd do it again?"

"I told him the truth," the warrior says simply, as though that were explanation enough.

"He might have gone easier on you if you had-"

"I can't ask your father for leniency. There's more at stake than my comfort." Then he turns to Zagreus, eyes suddenly wide, his hand curled up in tension next to his stricken face. "You haven't spoken to him of this, have you? Promise me you won’t. Promise me you’ll leave it alone.”

He had asked the same thing of him before, that moment in his room before Hades’s judgment was passed. It hurts to think that this is something Achilles won’t understand, something he can’t explain. Achilles means more to him than his mother, than the House and everyone in it, than all of his memories and the things he’s done. If it came down to a choice like the one he’d made – Achilles’s freedom against anything he had to offer – Zagreus would sign it all away without a second thought. Why can’t he see that? He should know better than anyone what it means to love someone this much.

"I'm going to fix this,” Zagreus tells him with all the self-control he can muster, “no matter what it takes."

"Don't you understand?” Achilles’s voice is rising. He slams a fist on his thigh in frustration. “It was in his power to strip Patroclus of his protection. He could have taken that from me and he didn't. I owe your father everything!"

"Then why did you do it?” Zagreus asks, throat tight. “If that was the risk, why help me at all?"

"I told you to leave it alone!" Achilles roars.

The sound of it reverberates against the walls. Zagreus has never heard Achilles raise his voice before, not a single time since he came to serve the House of Hades twelve years ago. He steps back without meaning to. His heart is pounding, sped up with fear at having pushed his mentor too far.

Without another word, Achilles lies back on the smooth tile. Strands of his hair tangle up beneath him, intertwined with his chlamys, filaments of gold among the green. He folds his hands and rests them over his stomach like a prepared corpse. The wrongness of it twists up inside his chest and he has to look away, swallow the guilt, his fists clenching. The one person who wouldn’t give up on Zagreus is giving up on himself.

Stygius tears his heart open, coming out through his spine on the other side, and he falls forward onto the same floor as Achilles with the hilt clattering against the tile, back to death, back to red.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is like chapter 2.5 more than a full chapter I guess

"It’s you again."

Patroclus acknowledges him without making a single motion. His dark, mournful eyes are fixed on the river Lethe, focused without following its course, as though he were seeing something there besides eddies and currents. Small white flowers sway at his feet where he sits.

Zagreus is panting, sore, exhausted, miserable. He leans on the statue at the top of the staircase with one hand and wipes blood from his nose with the other, tasting it behind his teeth. Heading into intense, breakneck combat with four shades pinning him into a corner, bludgeoning his way out with Aegis until his wrist pulls and burns in agony, and then opening the door to a peaceful, silent meadow will always come as a welcome surprise.

"I’m sorry to keep disturbing you like this,” Zagreus rasps, hoping the sincerity comes through. He swallows the rest of the blood and has to cough just to get his throat back open. “It … must be very peaceful here in this little room without my interruptions."

"Peace, as in the absence of war. I only wish it were peace as in the absence of feeling.” The Myrmidon leans his head back and into a ray of ephemeral light, dark waves of hair tumbling away from his face. He’s never been able to look at Patroclus without wondering where Achilles’s gaze would go; what would he linger on? Patroclus is slimmer, his features softer, deep skin striking against the sea green and gold he shares with his absent companion. His beauty has no similarity to Zagreus and the thought leaves him feeling small and petty, a boy standing next to a man.

“What have you come to trouble me with today?” Patroclus asks in his soft cadence.

There’s no way to blunt the edge of what he needs to ask. "If you'll pardon my forwardness, sir, I ... I've actually come seeking your advice."

A chuckle, and a shake of his head. "Do I seem like a man with any great wisdom to impart?"

"It’s about Achilles, sir."

His face falls, as Zagreus knew it would. His dark brows pull downward and he seems to stop breathing for a moment. For the first time, that immediate response of pain at the name makes sense to Zagreus. He shares it with him now.

"You’ve said he serves at your father's house,” Patroclus says after a long moment. “I am certain you are more familiar with him than I, after all this time."

"No, that's - that's just it.” Zagreus takes a chance and comes closer. He sits on the cobblestone next to the shade, crossing his legs, peering at him in sympathy. “It’s … about the parts I don’t know. He’s being punished by my father for helping me, and … when I’ve tried to find him, he’s trapped inside these memories. Awful memories. Living through them again.”

"That seems a familiar torment to me," Patroclus murmurs. A passing cloud of mist obscures the beam of light, casting his face into shadow.

"I found a way to interrupt it, but … he won’t let me help. I got to thinking that if anyone could help bring him back to himself, it would be you."

He and Achilles had fought together. Whatever Achilles had done to feel ashamed of, Patroclus would have been aware of it. Achilles wouldn’t have to hide himself from someone who knew him the way he was, someone who already loved him despite those things. It hurts to remember his anger, his reluctance to let Zagreus see him, but none of that matters now. He said he’d fix it and he’ll die trying.

Patroclus folds his arms, elbows resting on his cloaked knees. The bracer on his wrist glints in the greenish light as if it, too, remembers someone, the familiar hole torn out of both of them.

“What could I possibly do? I'm bound here. He's seen to that. If the memories we shared were enough to change his mind, I don't suppose I’d still be alone."

“I don’t know,” Zagreus admits. His heart is a dull pain beneath his chest, throbbing and sick. "Is there something that I could say to him that might ... remind him of a better time, maybe? Somewhere he could go that wouldn’t …” He can’t finish that thought. The brutality of Achilles's grip on his hair, pulling him from the horse. slitting his throat while he clung to his knees, throwing him into the river - hand in his mouth, lips against his own – “Something that doesn’t hurt.”

“It’s very hard for me to make that distinction anymore,” the shade murmurs. A butterfly lands on Zagreus’s knee, and he jolts in surprise but it manages to hang on, its dark blue wings drawing together. He lets his hand approach slowly, then extends a finger. The little creature crawls up and onto the back of his hand. Its wings extend in approval. He watches it vibrate, little twitches in the breeze.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you,” Zagreus says quietly, directed to the butterfly, which flies away at the sound of his voice. “I know the pain it causes. But I can’t let him suffer because of me.”

"Do you love him?"

Patroclus’s voice is calm, but the question drives home like a stab wound. He deserves to know. They had shared everything once, even their ashes. This is the man Achilles loves, the reason he came into Zagreus’s life in the first place. Zagreus has no right to hold onto this love like it belongs to him, like it’s something they alone share.

"I ... I do."

To his surprise, the shade laughs in response and meets his gaze for the first time since they’d begun to talk. His smile is welcoming, his eyes almost warm behind the intractable pain.

"How could you not? He makes it very easy. I think everyone who knew him loved him in their own way. "

"Then you're not angry?" Zagreus is caught up in Patroclus’s newfound attention. He leans in without meaning to, pulled closer by sharing this secret, wanting his approval, his forgiveness. His blessing.

"What claim have I?” Patroclus points out softly. His dark eyes are mesmerizing now that they’re focused on him, catching Elysium’s light in a way that makes Zagreus want to lean in even further. “Who am I to Achilles but another unpleasant memory?"

"That’s not true.” Zagreus has to look away for a moment to break the spell and reclaim his train of thought. “He loves you still. I ... If I can get him out of this, I’ll find a way to make you see that."

As soon as he’s said it, Patroclus’s welcoming aura snaps shut like a vice. His eyes close and he turns again to the river, his face falling into shadow.

"I have nothing more to offer you," he says, with an air of finality.

Swallowing back his frustration, Zagreus comes to his feet. This was his only lead, and he’d thought they were getting somewhere only for the ghost of Achilles to step in and ruin it at the last second. _What a mess you’ve made_ , he tells Achilles in his head angrily, but he can’t hold onto the feeling for long.

He retrieves Aegis from where he’d leaned it against the statue. It hangs heavier on his sore arm, the strap biting into his skin. Zagreus is nearly to the door when Patroclus speaks up behind him.

"Wait. Tell him ... “

He stops to listen, not turning around.

“Tell him to think of the stars at Pelion."

"The stars at Pelion?" Zagreus repeats.

"I’ll speak no more of it."

The stars at Pelion. Zagreus lets the words roll through his mind as he takes on the King of Athens, the roar of the crowd dulled, barely paying attention to his footwork or the constant insults. The stars at Pelion, he repeats to himself as Theseus’s spear catches him in the chest and pins him to the wall, red already in his eyes as his body slumps down. Think of the stars at Pelion.

* * *

Aphrodite’s rosy beacon glitters at the entrance to Tartarus, somehow reflecting every color at once.

“You’ve forgotten my apple,” she accuses him, arms folded over her breasts, scowling.

Zagreus had forgotten about it. Worriedly, he pats the little skull pouch and can feel the round shape inside; the last thing he needs is an Olympian angry at him, on top of everything else.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Aphrodite,” he says sincerely. “I was … I thought maybe I should save it for some other time.”

“I gave it to you for a reason. Don’t you trust me?”

He’s walking a dangerous line here; her anger has a sting to it that he can still remember from the last time he turned her down in favor of a sibling. “I … just so we’re on the same page, my lady, I’m not going for Olympus at the moment, I’m trying to … help a friend.”

Aphrodite huffs through her dainty nose. “Do you think I’m not aware, little godling? I can see all the paths that love takes, even down here. My apple is not for show. It has a purpose.”

“Can you at least tell me what it does?” Zagreus asks, too exhausted to keep up the façade of fealty.

“It won’t work that way,” she snaps. “And it’s not wise to question my gifts, especially not in your predicament.”

Zagreus doesn’t know what that means and can hardly bring himself to care at this point. He slips the apple out of its pouch; it still shines, fresh and light in his hand, its golden sheen reflecting his face. What’s the worst that could happen? The gods are deceptive, but they don't seem like outright liars, and she had assured him last time that the apple wouldn't charm anyone into anything that isn’t real. Zagreus wets his lips and takes a bite. The flesh is surprisingly tart; he had imagined it would be honey-sweet, but his mouth puckers from the acidity. He swallows, and a sensation almost like butterflies traces down his throat and along into his stomach, a dizzying, ticklish feeling.

"Ugh," he groans, then catches himself. "I, ah, it's ... different. Pretty much just pomegranates down here."

He stows the rest of the apple back in its pouch. The tickly sensation is still there, tingling all over the roof of his mouth. The goddess tilts her head, a strange expression passing over her sculpted face.

“What if he loves someone else?" Zagreus asks out of nowhere. His own question catches him by surprise; he doesn’t even remember thinking that before he said it.

Aphrodite makes an undignified sound. "Well, I can hardly see what difference that makes."

Unsettled, he attempts a polite bow, hoping she’s satisfied enough to leave him alone for now

"Remember, godling, there's nothing more beautiful than the truth."

She smiles as she blinks out of his sight, leaving him to wonder what relevance that could possibly have to any of this. He doesn’t feel any different, outside of his fuzzy mouth and a headache that might be getting worse.

Outside the Erebus gate, he touches the apple inside its pouch nervously, his thoughts running to a thousand different scenarios that might be waiting in there; slaughter, warfare, even apparently sex, he recalls with a reflexive shiver. He wonders if Achilles saw Patroclus die, if he’s had to watch it happen again. There are so many things he doesn’t know.

“Please don’t be angry,” he whispers.

The blackness subsumes him, carrying him down. It feels rougher this time, like he’s being jostled during the descent, falling further and faster somehow. Before he can think about the implications, it stops.

Zagreus opens his eyes to a ceiling. A familiar ceiling. He’s in bed, he realizes with an immediate jolt. His own bed, sheets to his chin, his feet sticking out from the bottom of the blanket like always. Had the gate misfired? Experimentally, he lifts an arm and the same frustrating force keeps it from moving. Zagreus sorts through his memories of this room, trying to come up with a scene that Achilles might have been witness to; an argument, maybe? A nightmare? Nothing is coming to mind. Why would this room be inside of Achilles’s nightmare?

He waits for something to happen, for someone to enter or his body to move, some clue about where this is going. If Achilles is even in here, he can’t see him, not that he could turn his head to look.

Zagreus’s body adjusts itself onto his back, getting comfortable. It’s a strange feeling; he knows this bed, and the movement is familiar, but he still can’t control it, almost like some god is up there playing with Zagreus like a doll.

One of his hands creeps up to his collarbone, then begins to flutter downward slowly, delicately, over his own chest. He holds his breath, waiting to see what his own body is about to do. He can feel his palm flatten out over his navel. When it slides further down, the rest of his breath comes out in a short but audible huff, then returns with a gasp. Embarrassment lights him up from inside, a horrible urge to cringe, hide. Was Achilles watching this? Listening to him?

Zagreus has never been able to stay quiet. As a child, he remembers his father mocking him for always crying out in pain if he stumbled or if the dog was playing too rough; later, Achilles would chide him about practicing self-control so as not to make it obvious to a foe that he had been hurt. Even here, alone in his room, lost in his imagination, he would bury his face in the pillow or bite down on his hand for fear of being overheard, all easier measures than trying not to make a sound in the first place.

Zagreus is touching himself now, hardening under his own unwilling strokes, the pleasure cut through with the humiliating knowledge that he's being watched and he doesn't even know from _where_. Whatever he was thinking about, it must have been good; this isn’t the way he touches himself out of boredom, or restlessness, or just not being able to sleep. This is intense, his hand working up a rhythm and then stopping, teasing himself, letting the sensation linger. His face is flame red from shame and from his own arousal, impossible to ignore. He has to hush himself, closing his throat, trying not to breathe too fast or –

Or what? Achilles has no way of knowing whether this is really Zagreus or just his memory. If he had been watching Zagreus jack himself off –the thought ties his stomach up in knots of pleasure and pain, desire and confusion - then he would know how much noise he makes, and it would be suspicious if he stayed quiet. He could stay here in his own bed until he comes and then hope that the dream changes to something else, something where he dies again. Or he could call out to Achilles now and reveal himself, humiliating them both.

Zagreus’s body rolls him over onto his side, sheets brushing against his cheek. His knees draw up and his toes are curling. He reaches up to his face for a moment, then returns to his cock, and Zagreus realizes with a sharp twist of embarrassment that he must have been spitting in his hand. Then his head moves on the pillow, and if he strains his eyes up as far as they'll go, he can make out Achilles standing in the doorway to the weapons room, arms folded around himself, long hair concealing his face. A whirlwind of confusing emotions - _he feels guilty about this? Why was he watching me? Do I want him to see this?_

He holds his eyes closed tight out of fear that he might glance at Achilles again and reveal himself. His hand is half-clenched between his thighs, not even bothering with the base of his cock anymore, just fluttering at the head as fast as he can, building up a pressure and a clutching, aching heat – Achilles is listening to him, listening to him breathe, listening to the little slick sounds of his hand wet with precome - _I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this_ -

It takes the combined force of his embarrassment and his willpower to pull his hand away from his cock. He takes a moment to catch his breath and ignore the ache, ignore his sweat and his own racing heart. He opens his mouth but the words take a second to come out.

"Achilles, it’s me," he says, strained, panting.

A sharp intake of breath from the doorway.

"Oh, no."

A long moment of silence.

"It’s okay," Zagreus forces out. "It’s okay.”

"No, no, no. No. I told you to stay away."

He opens his eyes. Achilles's hands have covered his face. There's no way to tell if this is what he had originally been doing or if this is his reaction to what's happening.

"This is ..." Achilles's breathing is ragged, uneven. "You ... I can't ... Oh gods on Olympus everliving."

His voice cracks on the last word. The room shifts behind him, a nauseating lurch as the walls swirl and melt and reform into a thin lattice of wood. The soldier's hut again. Zagreus blinks to refocus his eyes. Achilles is seated now in a finely-carved wooden chair against the wall, holding his spear as though it were a king's scepter, his golden-greaved legs crossed at the ankle. Zagreus is on his knees, swathed in deep purple silk. So many of these memories involve people on their knees. His body is still sweat-slick and hard under the himation. He wills himself to relax, for the blood to go somewhere else, for his heart to slow down.

"Zagreus," Achilles begins, in a faltering voice completely opposite to his confident, regal posture. "Please let me explain."

"You don't have to -"

He takes a deep, shuddering, breath, lets it out. "This - I had ... It was not my intention to ... I should not have … I should not have stayed. I have no excuse. I can only apologize for breaching your privacy in such a way."

"Achilles, sir, I’m trying to tell you -"

Achilles won’t let him interrupt, for as difficult a time as he’s having with his own ability to speak. “And …. and for my anger earlier, when last you came …. I would also apologize. You know I can hold no anger with you, Zagreus. You have ... such a bright future waiting for you. And when you do make it to the surface, when you reunite with your mother ... I want you to embrace that future without looking back. All I have to offer are ties to the past, holding you down."

"No. No. You've got it all wrong. I can't ... I don't want to do this without you." There's a sour taste in his mouth again, numbing his tongue. The skin on his palate is prickling, tingling.

"That was my fear, and why I knew it was time to depart. You are not that boy anymore who looked to me for comfort, who came to me with his fears. You are ... a man now. A man grown.” Achilles lowers his gaze to some indeterminate point on the earthen floor.

The sour, metallic taste is getting stronger. A feeling like butterflies rustling in his throat.

"Achilles, I love you," Zagreus says to his own abrupt shock.

The warrior blinks, but his gaze doesn't move from the floor. "I love you, too, lad, but -"

The butterfly sensation is tickling, almost choking, like they could fly out of his mouth at any moment.

"As - as Patroclus loves you."

Achilles does not react. His face remains perfectly still. Zagreus's stomach lurches, sudden nausea strong enough to overcome his dream body and allow him to clutch at his throat, covering his mouth. Was this – Aphrodite’s apple? Did the apple make him say that? The rustling in his throat is unbearable. He's afraid to open his mouth again in case vomit or butterflies or words will come out, unsure which of those he's more frightened of.

"Before, in the tent," he hears himself confess, muffled by his hand, "what you were doing ... I wasn't afraid. I wanted more. I didn't want it to end."

"You don't know what you're saying," Achilles rasps, his voice gone rough.

"I do. I - I don't know why I’m telling you now, but I mean it. I love you. And I know I have no right to ask this, but if ..." Zagreus can feel where this trail of thoughts is leading, his guiltiest, most horrible desire. He claps both hands tighter over his mouth, willing himself to shut up, just for once, to stop talking, but the urge to confess is uncontrollable and it peels his hands away until they're clasped in front of him. The words rip themselves free and pour out like blood. "If you're never going to see Patroclus again, then does that mean I - that we could be together?"

As soon as the words have finished, the butterflies disappear, along with the nausea, the sour taste. He pants for breath, swallowing. There's no more trace of any of it. Aphrodite had said there was nothing unnatural, but there's no way to take that back; worse, there's no way to pretend that he didn't mean it. Zagreus feels dizzy, lightheaded, swaying over the edge of a dark precipice.

"Oh gods. Achilles," he starts, "sir, I’m so sorry. I should never - please forget I said that. It was horrible and -"

"Zagreus."

A long silence follows his name. All he can do is kneel and wait.

"The men I fought alongside," Achilles begins quietly, "were the strongest and fairest of all beneath Olympus. Had you been among them ... but those days are behind me. I'll not see you waste your love on a dead man. Save it for Megaera and Thanatos."

And there it is. Aphrodite had walked him right up to the cliff's edge and thrown him over. Zagreus harnesses the force of his embarrassment to push his body past the dream-lock and stand up from his knees. As if startled into remembering that he could resist, as well, Achilles rises from the chair, dropping his spear. Before he can speak, whiteness floods his vision. His ears ring and he floats, weightless for a moment, before reappearing on the black tile in Erebus, the two of them facing each other.

Achilles’s face is overcome by a strange expression. His brows are furrowed, blue eyes soft, looking at Zagreus in a way he can’t figure out.

“Lad, I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Pity. It’s pity.

Zagreus strips the shawl from around his neck and tosses it at Achilles's feet.

"I’ll find another way.” His voice is tight, tears already burning at the edge of his vision.

“You-“

"Patroclus said to remind you of the stars at Pelion,” he says, barely managing to speak above a whisper. “I ... I hope that helps somehow."

The warrior flinches as though he'd been struck. He stays rooted to the spot, shawl crumpled on the floor before him, as Zagreus lets Stygius break his heart one more time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know a zeusdamn thing about constellations so apologies to any astronomers out there
> 
> also I love Mr. Hades and I'm sorry that he comes off so one-sided here but since we are in Zag's perspective from before he's even escaped once, there's no real way to give him that extra dimension
> 
> also also there's not much "lad" here. it just didn't seem appropriate after a certain point. my fellow Zagchilles stans, I am sorry for ruining the "lad/sir" dynamic

Zagreus can feel his father watching him as he steps back onto solid land, letting the residue of the Styx drip down his face and onto the floor. He responds with a stare that embodies everything he’s feeling right now, the heat-red fire of his anger, wishing he could stab him through his eyes.

“You take no responsibility at all, do you?” Hades asks, lowering his quill.

Zagreus keeps walking. His hands clench into fists.

“Do you think I wanted to send him away? That I enjoyed being the disciplinarian?”

“Poor you,” Zagreus mutters.

“And if I hadn’t, what then?” Hades is delivering this speech like he’s considered it carefully ahead of time. Good, Zagreus thinks. I hope it haunts you every second. “What consequence should I have imparted? Should I have sent Megaera to chastise the oathbreaker? Should I have lashed him to a mountain and let eagles devour his liver? Look at me, boy.”

Zagreus stops, but doesn’t turn around.

“You think of me as some petty tyrant disposing of his servants as Zeus would throw away a consort that no longer titillated him.” Hades growls his brother’s name in clear disgust. “He would still be guarding this hall if not for your self-centered whim. Think, sometime, on the damage you’ve left behind without even managing to escape.”

“My lord.” Nyx. “That’s enough.”

“She knows that I speak the truth, even though she spares your feelings. Don’t let the silence deceive you into thinking anyone in this house approves of what you’ve done. Achilles provided more value in a day than you have in your entire existence.”

“That’s enough,” Nyx repeats. Her voice is sharp and it rises enough to echo, startling some of the shades in procession before Hades’s great desk, who shrink under their diaphanous hoods. “Please await me in your bedchamber, child. I shall not be long.”

The only voice that could convince him to drop it is Nyx’s. Zagreus swallows back the insult he’d been working on and walks stiffly into his room. There’s no solace in here anymore; it’s become a brief waypoint between the Styx and Tartarus, something to step through and ignore. The pieces of his life scattered over the shelves, in piles on the floor, stuffed inside a chest, feel like relics. He can’t remember the last time he slept or sat down to read.

Zagreus collapses into his chair. There are weeks-old plates on his desk that he still hasn’t put away, scrolls that might as well be from another life. What is he going to do when he gets to the surface, send a runner back down for his belongings? Does he care enough about any of this to bring it with him?

A hushed conversation is almost audible through the wall, his father’s timbre punctuated by periods of silence that must be Nyx rebutting something in her own soft way. He sinks further into the chair, trying to will the sound out of his consciousness. Achilles’s history book is on top of the pile here, and he opens it to a random page, searching for a distraction. His breath catches. There are notes in the margins, neatly scripted in a hand he recognizes from the codex.

_‘too eager. not a game. explain mortal life = impermanence. even heroes make mistakes’_

This is a chapter about Jason and the Argonauts. He had begged Achilles for a story one night, Zagreus remembers, reddening in hindsight at the thought of how old he’d been to make a request like that. Achilles had demurred, but finally gave in; he remembers the warrior sitting in this same chair and telling him about brave Jason and the crew of the Argo, sailing to find the fleece, beset by fierce harpies and jagged rocks. He had made the mistake of asking Achilles if he’d done anything as awesome as that when he was alive. Achilles ended the story prematurely and bid him good night instead.

On this page is an entire section that doesn’t sound familiar, circled in the same ink as the notes. Zagreus scans it with brows drawn. The Argonauts had sailed to a new country and made friends with the natives. When they left, the weather was poor and the ship turned around, and in their confusion they ended up slaughtering the people they had just befriended, including the King, whose wife grieved him so much she hung herself.

‘Even heroes make mistakes.’ Was Achilles taking notes so he could explain this to Zagreus? Did he think Zagreus was ‘too eager’?

He rifles through the pages with his heart heavy, looking for more of Achilles’s handwriting. A chapter on Perseus the monster-slayer, a chapter on Heracles, and after that – he swallows – a chapter on Achilles. Next to his own name, he has written: _‘not all true. explain to z.’_

There are notes on every page here, filling in details, correcting errors – some sentences are crossed out entirely. A paragraph about Chiron the centaur has a note saying _‘tried to prove myself - sometimes did not listen – tell z like father’._ He has drawn a line through an entire section about someone named Deidamia, writing on the side _‘not violent – did not know with child–‘_ The last note is on the page describing the Myrmidons sailing for Troy. _‘no longer proud,’_ reads Achilles’s handwriting. _‘no excuses – no fear - be open –‘_

Achilles has never spoken of any of this. He had always assumed his tutor avoided the subject with him because of the memories it brought back. But these notes –

“Achilles,” he tells the book uselessly, the words starting to blur, “did you really think I wouldn’t….“

“Know that your father does not speak for me.” Nyx’s restrained voice is quiet but clear in the doorway. He shuts the book on instinct, as if to protect Achilles’s privacy.

Nyx approaches him, coming so close that the hem of her dress brushes against Zagreus’s foot. He stands up politely and takes a step back so it won’t burn.

“He calls for you,” she whispers.

“Who? Father? Tell him he can –“

“Achilles.”

He wonders if his face looks the same as Patroclus at the sound of it, the same fresh pain, a wound that won’t heal. He fights to keep his brows steady and his mouth from tightening. Nyx has already done so much, has so much to bear. She shouldn’t have to worry about him.

“How did you –“ Zagreus swallows. “How can you tell?”

"He wears my shawl now,” Nyx confides, leaning in closer. Even with a wall dividing them, Hades’s silent presence is impossible to ignore. “It was faint, but I was able to make out his voice. He invoked my name and asked me to send for you."

A terrible thought comes to mind. He has to say it out loud just to dispel it. "Have you been able to hear … all this time?”

She shakes her head solemnly. "The chasm is so vast that, had he not spoken my name, I would not have felt a connection at all. Even then, I was only able to reach out for a moment. I hope that your efforts have been more sustained."

“It’s been … complicated,” Zagreus admits.

Nyx’s mouth tugs downward in a sympathetic frown, and she lingers close to him in silence, a hesitant aura. He can’t think of anything else to say that would make sense to her. He just reaches out and wraps his arms around her shoulders, trying not to muss her hair, and Nyx stands stock-still for a moment before returning the gesture. One elegant hand cradles the back of his head. She would never have done this even a week ago; Zagreus can count on one hand the number of times they’ve touched since he was old enough to start lessons with Achilles. Of all the people in this house with good reason to begrudge him his escape, Nyx should have been the first, and yet she’s taken it upon herself to help. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath against her shoulder, and tries not to embarrass her with his overwhelming gratitude.

“I should go,” he mumbles, more to convince himself than anything.

She separates from him and leaves her hands on his shoulders. The softness in her deep eyes reassures him that he hasn’t been too bold. _I wish I could say so much more to you, Nyx. I wish I could tell you how much this means._

"You go with my blessing,” Nyx tells him shortly, then turns to leave in haste, her dress billowing like smoke behind her.

* * *

Zagreus moves so swiftly through Tartarus that his eyes hardly focus long enough to register the wretches. Varatha flies with almost a life of its own, piercing and rushing back to his hand instead of waiting to be collected. He doesn’t slow down enough to think until the familiar light of Aphrodite’s beacon appears.

“Aphrodite,” he says dully, looking through her light to the wall behind it.

When she materializes, her arms are behind her back in an attempt at demureness. She pouts and remains silent, trying to goad him into acknowledging her, but Zagreus is too frustrated to play along. If he can’t say anything nice, maybe he can get away with not saying anything at all.

“Did he not tell you what you wanted to hear?” she asks finally, breaking the silence.

“Why do I get the feeling you already know, Lady Aphrodite?”

It comes out snappier than he had intended, and his shoulders tighten on reflex, waiting for the sting of divine disapproval. Instead, she gives off a dramatic sigh.

"Men are so stubborn,” Aphrodite complains, toeing an imaginary line in the cracked stone beneath her. “I'm not sure which of you is worse. I tried to give him my apple, too, you know, but he was so rude. After all this time, he still blames me for the war. Can you believe it?"

Zagreus is thinking about the feeling of tiny wings in his throat and the look of pity on Achilles’s face. It would have been easier if Achilles had just shouted at him again, told him he was a fool for thinking he could replace Patroclus. Zagreus could have accepted anger; he’s angry enough at himself for wanting it, let alone saying it. But Achilles had brushed him off like he was some misguided youth with stars in his eyes.

Patroclus had said he’d been easy to love. He must have been surrounded by admirers at the height of his fame, and had probably told them all the same thing in that same polite, pitying way. To be misunderstood that badly hurts more than the rejection. Zagreus can feel how deep it goes, can trace the boundaries of Achilles’s presence in his heart so much clearer now that he’s been taken away. It’s not about his prowess or physique, his legend or the things he’d done in the war. He thinks about the steadying hand on his shoulder, the voice in the dark telling tales of Argonauts when he had left so much of his own past unsaid; the wordless smile from across the hall while Father hurled his insults, the quiet concern prompting Zagreus to share what was on his mind in spite of the pain hiding in his own.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“I’m sorry,” Zagreus rasps, looking up at her in apology, all of his anger gone. “I’m sorry it didn’t work. Whatever you were trying to do.”

“Oh, godling.”

Aphrodite strolls closer to him, close enough for her warm aura to touch Zagreus’s skin, carrying with it the scent of hyacinths and musk. She brushes aside the lock of hair hanging over his eye and kisses his forehead, sending a prickly flush down his spine, a brief sensation of tiny wings. He opens his mouth experimentally, but his throat feels normal and words aren’t tumbling out.

“Sometimes a touch can say more than a thousand words,” she whispers. The sensual hint to her voice is making the tips of his ears redden.

“I … ah, well, it’s been, um, good to see you,” Zagreus stammers. His hand feels sweaty on the spear shaft, and he has to adjust his grip. Mercifully, her form evaporates without any further conversation. Achilles is waiting for him – Achilles wants to see him. Every second he spends in here is a second away from where he needs to be.

Zagreus’s hand is on the door when a sickly greenish light stains the wall from behind, casting his shadow wide over the stone.

"Where have you _been_?" Thanatos's voice cracks with barely concealed hysteria.

He turns around, gritting his teeth, but the look on Thanatos’s face is so raw that his frustration fades, replaced by a well-worn wave of guilt. His golden eyes are limned with red, his hair windswept and uneven.

"Oh, Than. I'm sorry. I didn't think -"

"You didn't think I'd worry? Or you didn't think about me at all?"

For all that he’s been acting like Zagreus’s departure is just another stupid idea in a string of stupid ideas, Thanatos obviously took it as an insult. Zagreus is used to weathering his friend’s strange tempers and strong emotions, but he’s never been the cause of them before, at least not this directly.

"I've been going after Achilles wearing Nyx's shawl,” he explains, sighing. “I know it kept me out of Father's sight. I guess it … kept you out too."

"You guess." Thanatos’s voice quavers. “I couldn’t feel you at all. Thought you were really dead, this time, and somehow you’d managed to circumvent me.”

There’s no way he can explain this with words. Zagreus leans Varatha against the door, comes closer and takes both of Thanatos’s hands. Thanatos doesn’t move, but his eyes flick restlessly from his own hands to Zagreus’s face, as if trying to comprehend the meaning behind the gesture.

"In my defense,” Zagreus starts, attempting a smile, “you're not exactly easy to find either when I need to tell you something."

"I have a job to do. Have you ever considered -"

"Let's please not fight. Not now. Just - thank you for always looking out for me, Than."

Thanatos's mouth tightens. He stares at Zagreus in silence, his nostrils flaring, frustration and concern radiating from his ashen face. He hasn't vanished yet, so something must be working; Zagreus thanks Aphrodite profusely for not forcing words out of his mouth here, knowing how easy it is for Thanatos to misconstrue the things he says, tangling compliments into week-long spells of silence.

Zagreus follows an impulse, lets go of one of Thanatos’s hands and touches his cheek. The deep cold of his skin is somehow always startling. He blinks, those amber eyes fixed on him with an intensity that worries him more than anything.

"What is this?" Thanatos asks flatly.

"A gesture of affection?"

"No, Zag, I mean - this thing in your hair."

He reaches out and plucks something from the swath of hair hanging in front of his ear. It's a tiny rose stem, the pink blossom as small as his thumb. The little thorns have snared one of Zagreus's dark hairs. Thanatos pinches it as though it were a squirming insect, his eyes narrowed. He opens his fingers to drop it but instead of falling, it hovers in place between them.

"Aphrodite,” Zagreus mutters. “She must have -"

"It's cut you."

Thanatos rubs a spot on Zagreus’s forehead with his thumb, then comes back to dab it with a fold of his grey cloak, an unusually tender gesture. His gaze seems to soften, some of the fear draining from his expression. Zagreus can feel his grip tighten in the hand he’s still holding.

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Than,” he says quietly, guilt squeezing at his throat, “but I’m not going to stop, either. So I don’t know where that leaves us.”

“As long as I know you’re out there,” Thanatos whispers. “Don’t hide from me like that again.”

Zagreus picks up the little rose from its spot in midair. Expecting a complaint, he sticks it on the corner of Thanatos’s hood, incongruously bright next to his friend’s colorless face, and somehow Thanatos allows it to remain.

"I have to go, Than, but I - I'll look for you when I get back. Okay?"

"Do that."

Thanatos blinks abruptly away, leaving Zagreus’s hands extended in an awkward pose. His forehead stings where the rose had scratched him, and his fingernails work at it unconsciously as he retrieves Varatha, the rest of his thoughts fading back into irrelevance.

The Erebus gate burns cold around his toes, the flames blending together and crackling softly. Getting here had taken up so much of his concentration; now that there’s only one thing left to do, he can’t bring himself to do it.

There’s no reason to hesitate; Achilles is expecting him. It should be a comforting thought. Instead, Zagreus feels frozen in place, trying to think of all the reasons _why_. If it has anything to do with the words that Aphrodite dragged out of his mouth, then he’d just as soon stay on this side of the dream – but how selfish is that? He’d interrupted Achilles against his will again and again, and the one time Achilles actually wants to see him, he’s stuck here working up the nerve.

He stares at his unmoving feet and tries to convince himself to lift one. Apprehension rears inside his chest like an animal, guilt heavy on its back. Achilles could send him away – could be ending their mentorship permanently, now that Zagreus’s feelings are clear. Maybe his father has changed the contract and Patroclus is suffering and Achilles wants to rake him over the coals. Maybe – no.

“Just get it over with,” he mutters under his breath. “Just … do it.”

Zagreus pushes himself forward into the flames, falling head-first into the darkness. He floats from side to side like a feather, guided gently downward until his body feels solid again and he can pull his eyes open.

He sees the sky first, endless and impossible to fathom, like a smooth, dark sheet spotted with light. Nothing is preventing him from moving. He cranes his neck trying to take it all in, stumbling backwards. On the horizon, the sky touches what must be the sea, a distant gray shimmer; he can see little hills clustered with trees down below. He’s high up – is this a mountain? He can feel his underworld eyes adjusting to the ambient light. Colors are coming through now, deep green and gray-blue, the black of the sky richer and fuller. It looks so different from the green of Elysium or Tartarus. The grass under his feet is soft and damp, spreading through his toes, and there’s a smell he can only identify as _outside_ , something he recognizes from the trees near the Temple of Styx.

Smoke wafts toward him with an unusual scent, pungent and crisp. Zagreus turns around to see where it’s coming from, and there’s a small campfire here crackling with dry logs, sending sparks up high like an Olympian beacon. Beside the fire is Achilles. His green chlamys is spread out over the grass, and he sits with one knee up, leaning back on his bare arms, watching the sky.

Watching the stars. The stars at Pelion. This place has a meaning, one that Patroclus knew would be strong enough to pull Achilles back to himself, a lodestone in his memories. The thought of it makes Zagreus feel very small. Just standing here by himself means treading on old footsteps from a time and place that have nothing to do with him; this beautiful sky that he can’t comprehend, hills and trees and wild green things that are only as real to him as stories from a book.

He pads slowly toward Achilles, little hisses from the wet grass tickling his soles. Achilles glances up at the sound. His eyes are bright and clear, reflecting the orange-gold of the fire, and they seem to thaw as he looks at Zagreus, relaxing on his face like he’s the answer to a question.

“Sit with me, Zagreus.”

He taps at a spot on the rumpled chlamys. Zagreus lowers himself next to Achilles in an awkward position, draping his legs sideways and keeping his feet on the grass to avoid singeing holes in the fabric.

He belongs less in this place, in this memory, than any of the others; the thought of how Patroclus would feel if he knew Zagreus was sitting here at Pelion burns through him with a brief, hot arc of guilt. This mountain has a history that he’s not part of. It’s not meant for him.

“Nyx said you asked for me,” Zagreus tells him in a neutral tone, keeping his gaze fixed on the fire. Any more than this, the barest thread of a conversation, and he’s afraid of what would happen, how he would react. There’s nothing tickling in his throat, no burning urge to confess, but he can feel the shape of the words he’d said hanging between them like a palpable weight. Maybe Achilles can ignore it, but he can’t.

"Do you remember me telling you of my tutor, Chiron, the great centaur?” Achilles lifts an arm to point at a series of indistinct white specks. “There he is above us, in the stars."

They all look the same, but Zagreus nods anyway, not wanting to interrupt.

"Patroclus and I returned here to our boyhood home before the siege, just to remember what peace felt like, and to watch the stars as we once had when we were innocent. There, his favorite - Kyon, the faithful dog, chasing the fox. Do you see it?”

He squints, trying to tell one dot apart from the next. Nothing looks like an animal or even a shape he can recognize. Focusing on the stars is almost impossible; his mind keeps jumping from one thought to the next, from the awareness of Achilles’s body so close beside him to the memory of his pitying face, from Patroclus asking if he loved Achilles to the feeling of having those words ripped out like a fish on a hook.

"I would show them all to you, had we time," Achilles murmurs, lowering his arm and folding it in his lap, as if sensing that Zagreus isn’t paying attention. "I… imagine you’re wondering why I asked you to return."

Here it comes. Zagreus picks at his thumbnail. One of his laurel leaves floats down onto the chlamys, curled up like a little yellow boat.

“If I learned but one thing in my short life, it is that I never again wish to let my parting words leave anyone in anger or in pain.”

"That does seem to be how most of my conversations end lately," Zagreus observes under his breath.

In his peripheral vision, he can see Achilles’s hand curling in his lap, fingers moving in small, restless patterns.

“I owe you and Nyx a great debt. She explained to me that as long as I wear the shawl, it will seem to your father as though my punishment is ongoing, yet I can remain here at peace.” A pause. “If it would help you to … to see me, then I would welcome you to return as often as you would like, and to keep me informed of your efforts.”

“Then you aren’t coming home?”

It sounds so childish now that he’s said it out loud. His shoulders tighten in embarrassment and he lowers his head, staring at the hem of his chiton as if it had a script he could read.

“No,” Achilles tells him softly. “I won’t be returning to the house.”

“I still don’t understand why.” It’s not Aphrodite forcing his words this time, just his own tension building up until he can’t stand it. “It’s almost like … you wanted to leave. And helping me was just an excuse.”

“It was … for your sake.” The warrior shifts next to him, both hands in his lap now, clasped tight. “Not because of … anything you did, but … the way you’ve grown, you …”

His voice fades. Zagreus fills it in for him.

“You don’t want to be around me anymore. Because I – because of how I feel.”

Achilles’s lack of response is all the answer he needs. Zagreus pushes himself onto his knees, then stands up. His toes curl into the grass as he sways, unsteady, vision blurring with hot, stupid tears.

“I won’t make it any harder for you, sir,” he says without malice. Achilles belongs here, in peace under the stars somewhere he knows, not underground in a meaningless cage built by his father. “I’m glad you could find this place.”

“Zagreus, wait.”

Achilles reaches for his hand. His fingers brush across Zagreus’s palm. The contact sends a little prickle over his skin, like a spider crawling, and his forehead twinges in sudden, sharp pain where the rose had scratched it.

"I can't," Achilles says suddenly. He pulls his hand back. His expression has changed, brows furrowed, blue eyes scanning the scenery in front of him in confusion. His hand lifts to his throat.

"I can't give you what you deserve," he rasps, an unnatural force behind his low voice. "You deserve so much more than this. I'd have overthrown kings, toppled cities for you. The way you look at me ... you consume me. It’s as though you share his spirit. The light in your eyes when you set your mind to something … it demands all of the strength I have left not to take you in my arms.”

The warrior exhales shakily, then draws in a measured breath. A streak of iridescence glows faintly under the skin of his neck, like mother of pearl, as though he had swallowed light.

"What enchantment is this?" he whispers, touching his lips. "I did not – Zagreus, I would not have –"

 _Sometimes a touch can say more than a thousand words._ Aphrodite had known. She had known Achilles wouldn’t take her apple. Zagreus was the conduit.

He should let this go. He should leave before Achilles can betray himself any further. And he will, after one question.

“Is that why you wanted to be punished? Why you told me not to come for you?”

Achilles's answer comes immediately, giving him no chance to dissemble or deflect.

"Your room was empty as I passed through. I was in the courtyard examining the arms – I wanted to familiarize myself with them so as to better assist you in your endeavors. I must have spent some time there. When I finished, I … I turned to leave and …”

In the span of a blink, Mount Pelion has disappeared. Zagreus is looking at himself in his own bedchamber, watching himself curl under the sheets, his lip caught in his teeth and his face reddened. He hears his own sounds - gasps, little clicks from the back of his throat. Both Zagreuses are red-faced now, one from lust, one from rock-bottom embarrassment. He can't watch this again. His eyes slam shut but his own voice is inescapable, mumbled, pressed into the corner of the pillow.

“ _Achilles, sir, please._ ”

Achilles had heard this. He knew. He already knew.

"I wanted to go to you. I stood there at war with myself. On the one side, this bright boy in all his fervor. On the other, my scarred soul and my commitment to your father. I waited, and .... drank you in."

"I want it," comes Zagreus’s own voice again, less than a whisper. He hears his breath catch, and then a long, shuddering exhale. The bedroom fades, mercifully, and Pelion filters back into view, the stars and the firelight a dark contrast.

Achilles stands with his head down, arms straight at his side. He tries to keep his face from contorting into anguish, clearly fighting to keep his brows level and his chin from shaking. This is the same expression he had worn while throwing Zagreus into the river by the heel, while kicking him in a huddle on the ground, while straddling him with his fingers in his mouth, while begging him not to return, as though all these things were equal. As though he thinks caring for Zagreus is the same as hurting him.

"I knew myself to be too foolish to resist you for long.” Achilles’s low voice is barely audible over the crackle of the fire. “I don't think you fully realize ... the effect you have on people. if you had asked me then, I ... would have done anything, given you anything. I had to find a reason to leave before I put you at risk. When you came back in tears, about to give up, I knew it was my moment, and I took your father’s punishment gratefully. it was as if he knew what had happened in my heart. What I needed to be reminded of. Who I was, and who I still am, and what happens to the people I love.”

Achilles turns his gaze to Zagreus now, desperate. The glow around his neck intensifies, vivid and hot, until it drowns out the firelight.

"Zagreus, my love kills. To be loved by me is a horrible thing. And you deserve -"

"No, sir. Please don't tell me what you think I deserve.” He’ll never get another chance to say this. He has to make this clear, now, before Achilles decides to leave again, before he loses him forever. “You thought Patroclus deserved an eternity without you. You thought you deserved to be punished for - for caring about me. Father thinks I deserve to be locked up here for the rest of my life. Meg, Thanatos - you're the one person who's listened to me. Who's asked what I _want_ , not what I deserve. What about - what do _you_ want?"

On Zagreus’s last word, the radiance over Achilles’s throat disappears. Aphrodite has abandoned him, too, just as she had left Zagreus to stumble in the wreckage of his own confession. Achilles touches his adam's apple tentatively. His lips part, but he can’t speak, searching for his own words now, for a way forward.

“I saw the book,” Zagreus bursts out, interrupting the silence. Every secret, everything hidden between them – just bring it all out in the open. There’s no coming back from this anyway. “What you’d written about – about the war. And I don’t – it doesn’t change anything. About how I feel. What happened then … you’ve already paid for it. And you’ve never hurt me. I know that your heart belongs to Patroclus –“ and here his own voice starts to falter, to choke him. He can’t finish. To have come this far, to hear that Achilles thinks of him the same way – wants him – only to run up against the same wall he already knew was there – what was Aphrodite thinking? What does it change?

But Achilles is coming closer. Wordlessly, he stands in front of Zagreus, a tall silhouette blocking the fire, golden hair in his face and his bare arms backlit and resplendent. With the back of his curled fingers, he strokes the long line of Zagreus’s dark brows, over his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, holding Zagreus’s gaze with his eyes still uncertain. His hand stops at his neck. Zagreus is trembling under his sudden attention. His hands are shaking, almost numb, torn between reaching for Achilles and the terror that somehow he might interrupt this, wake up in Erebus or in the Styx and he would never know how this would have ended –

Achilles’s mouth seeks him out, a soft pressure, lips closed, leaning down to make up for Zagreus’s height. Strands of hair fall forward and brush against his neck. Zagreus breathes through his nose. His head is swimming. He holds onto Achilles’s waist with one hand just to stabilize himself, trying to stay upright.

When Achilles pulls back, his eyes close, and he takes his hand away from Zagreus’s neck to return it to his side. Zagreus can’t bring himself to let go. His hand stays on Achilles’s waist, hard linen beneath his palm, rising and falling with his breath.

“What I want,” Achilles begins, then shakes his head in a brief, hard motion. He tries again, opening his eyes, finding Zagreus’s gaze. “I’ve already hurt you. I’ve hid myself from you. I … lost my temper. I kept you in the dark. I’ve … loved you selfishly, knowing that I could never meet you as an equal, that I could never give you … all of me.”

“I know. I know that, sir.”

“You know all this,” he asks in a small, shattered voice, “and still you would have me?”

Golden-haired, swift-footed, lion-hearted Achilles, leader of men, alike to the gods, is asking the petty, recalcitrant prince of the underworld if he can see past his flaws. It should beggar belief. He should be laughing at the ridiculousness of it. But Achilles is asking because he wants to make sure Zagreus understands who he is, because he cares what Zagreus thinks of him enough to worry, because he’s always considered Zagreus and his feelings, and the thought of it is sending a cascade of wordless, jumbling emotions through his chest, hitching up his breath and making his face burn.

“Whatever I can have,” Zagreus manages to say. “Whatever you can give me.”

Achilles’s expression changes then, a subtle shift. He breathes out long and steady as if something physical were leaving his body. He cups Zagreus’s face with his hands and tilts it toward him, searching his eyes, and Zagreus tries hard to hold still for him until he finds whatever he’s looking for.

“The way you look at me,” Achilles rasps, his voice thick.

This time, when Achilles’s lips brush against him, he opens his mouth to let Zagreus in. He tastes cool like fresh water, the herbal scent of his hair and the chill of his palms against Zagreus’s flushed cheeks a discordant burst of sensation. Zagreus gasps into his mouth and grabs for him with his other hand, clutching at the linen like he’d fall backwards if he let go. His lips close and open again into softness, the gentle strokes of Achilles’s tongue almost hesitant, asking for his permission. Every second of this, every small wet sound and breath and brush of fingertips beneath his ear, is kindling a fire; Zagreus can feel it burning away his fear, his envy, his exhaustion, even his awareness of the wind and the fire and the trees.

Achilles breaks the kiss, leaving Zagreus with his mouth open, finding his breath. His hands travel down to Zagreus’s shoulders, one bare, one nested beneath a pauldron.

“You've thought of this?” he asks, thumb brushing across the curve of his shoulder. “Thought of me?”

His voice is soft, almost seeking reassurance. The realization sweeps through Zagreus like a slow wave; this is Achilles’s vulnerability, here, more than his heel or his guilt. He’s shut himself off for so long that it must be terrifying for him to feel like this again. How long has it been since anyone’s touched him? Is he holding back because he’s afraid it’ll be too much for him?

Zagreus reaches up slowly to lift the circlet from Achilles’s forehead, sending his blond waves spilling loose, softening the hard square of his shoulders. He’s always liked how it looked down, whether sweat-slick from training or little strays finding their way free over his face. He lets the circlet fall to the grass. Achilles blinks, a flicker of confusion in his brow, and then Zagreus stands on his tiptoes to kiss him again, coaxing his mouth open and teasing his tongue out, letting him feel how much Zagreus wants this, wants him.

“I’ve dreamed about it,” he says, finally, into the corner of Achilles’s mouth.

“Oh.” The warrior’s breath is a soft tickle against his cheek. “What have you dreamed of?”

Zagreus’s pulse is shivering in his throat. He can’t focus enough to come up with something appropriate, something polite. He goes with the first thing that comes to mind, an image and a sensation he hasn’t been able to forget.

“When you … before, with – when you put your finger in my mouth,” he stammers, his newfound confidence escaping him.

Achilles flinches. For a horrible moment, Zagreus fears he’s said the wrong thing, crumbled this fragile ledge they’ve wandered out onto, but then Achilles lifts his hand and brings his forefinger to Zagreus’s lips, too hesitant to breach them. Without hesitating, Zagreus leans forward and slips his mouth over it. He cradles Achilles's finger with his tongue, warming it in his own heat, sucking the salt from his skin. Tightening his cheeks, he works down to the knuckle, pulling up and taking it in again, the rough lines of Achilles’s joints scraping over his teeth. It’s a performance, one he doesn’t entirely understand the meaning of – Zagreus has never had a cock in his mouth, but he’s imagined one, sometimes sucking on his own fingers for practice, picturing what it would taste like, whether it would gag him, the feeling of Achilles’s grip tight on his scalp pushing him down onto it, and all of that unbound, curious energy is pouring out right now. His eyes flick up to see Achilles’s half-lidded gaze focused on him. Red tinges his high cheekbones. He’s made Achilles blush. The thought of it spreads down through his body in a hot ache.

Achilles removes his hand, a thin trail of spit following from Zagreus’s mouth. He clutches the back of Zagreus’s neck, finger wet against his skin, and pulls him close as though to kiss him; instead, Achilles just holds him there by the nape, close enough to feel his breath. Zagreus is only tall enough to reach his shoulder. There’s a hard set to his jaw now, his grip less forgiving, as if something below the surface has roused and taken control. His eyes aren’t asking questions of Zagreus anymore; they burn into him with single-minded focus.

“What would you have of me?” he asks, somewhere between a growl and a whisper. “I’ll give you anything.”

Zagreus’s ribs clench from ridiculous, overwhelming desire. He turns his neck to the side a little just to feel the iron of Achilles’s grasp rub over the bone. It feels comforting, secure.

“Can I … touch you?”

His hand fumbles at the side of Achilles’s linen cuirass, and the warrior unstraps it, letting it fall to the ground. In the firelight he seems almost to glow; every curve and hollow of muscle is illuminated, outlined in shadow. Zagreus lets his hands travel over Achilles’s cool skin, feeling the swell of his chest beneath his palms, the godlike strength kept in check just below the surface. Nervously, he brushes over a nipple, small and pointed from the night air, and he glances up at Achilles to make sure it’s okay. Achilles’s grip on his neck relaxes to stroke Zagreus’s hair, encouraging, allowing himself to be explored.

His heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his teeth. His fingers drag lower, tracing the groove that runs to his navel, then stop at the edge of Achilles’s belt, folds of stiff green linen held in place.

“Is that what you want?” Achilles rumbles. His hand stops moving on Zagreus’s hair.

Zagreus is trying to say “yes,” but the sound that comes out is more like a shaky hum. One long, silent moment, and then Achilles reaches down with his strong arms coming between them, his fingers working. The linen floats down with a soft rustle. His arms return to his side. Zagreus’s eyes are locked on Achilles; he feels frozen in place knowing what’s there now, what’s waiting for him. This is all real. This is really happening.

“Only if you want,” Achilles murmurs.

Zagreus lets his hand find it first, beneath the rough hair. It’s so wide that he swallows in a strange nervous reflex. He explores it with his palm, leaning against Achilles’s chest and letting his breath come out fast, feeling the warmth and hardness under his fingers. It’s wet at the tip; Achilles’s stomach tenses at the touch, and he draws in air with a tight gasp. The sound of it gives Zagreus the confidence to lower to his knees, soft on the chlamys, and face it for the first time. Achilles’s cock is long and supple as the warrior himself, smooth-veined, framed by the strong furrows of muscle above his hips and a wiry tousle of dark golden hair. The tip gleams with the evidence of his excitement. Following an impulse, Zagreus kisses it, wetting his lips with precome and licking them off, the taste thin and sweet. This is only for him – Achilles is hard and wet because of him – Zagreus is squirming on his knees with intolerable, impossible desire. He takes the smooth head into his mouth and sucks at it, experimenting, holding it steady with a hand on the base, rewarded by another gasp and a hand coming to rest on top of his hair.

Feeling bolder, he glances up at Achilles as his tongue circles, and at the eye contact Achilles seems to startle, a visible jolt running through him. The hand on his hair tightens. As if sensing that Zagreus needs encouragement, Achilles strokes his hair, fingers rubbing gently into his scalp. His mouth opens and he looks like he’s searching for words that would fit here, something kind to tell Zagreus.

“You – you’re so beautiful,” he whispers, voice strained. “I never … it never felt right to … to picture this,” interrupted by his uneven breathing, “but to see you … “

Zagreus’s ears are burning. The praise melts into his blood, pulsing through him, intoxicating. He holds his breath and tries to fit more of it inside his mouth, so warm and solid, tightening his lips and pulling back to suck at the head again, everything he’s ever imagined doing, all the nights he’s dreamed of Achilles holding him and telling him how good he is and taking him by the hair, and he wants to be that good for him, make him feel even half of what he’s feeling right now, how much he loves him and loves every part of him –

“Zagreus,” in a tone he’s never heard before, “please stop.”

Immediately, he pulls back and lets go. He steadies himself with both hands on the ground, looking up, searching Achilles’s face in terror for a sign of what he’s done wrong.

Achilles kneels in front of him, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He takes Zagreus by the shoulders with hands that have warmed up considerably since this began.

“I would not … end so soon,” he explains softly. “Not without … returning the favor. If you would have me.”

Returning the favor. As though servicing Achilles isn’t the one thing he’s dreamt of since he was old enough to dream that way. But Achilles is waiting, wordless and patient, and then Zagreus realizes he’s asking for permission to touch him, even now, for fear of overstepping his bounds.

“Please,” Zagreus tells him, amazed that it needs to be said. “I – want that. Anything.”

For the third time, Achilles tilts his chin up and kisses him, gentle at first, but then his tongue travels deeper into Zagreus’s mouth, and it hits him that he might be tasting himself, tasting the hints of precome that Zagreus pulled out of him. It seems so obscene, so incredible, that the surge of arousal takes him by surprise, and he cringes from it, aching, grabbing at Achilles’s shoulders and running his hands in a frenzy over his skin, pulling him downward until Achilles is on top of him, his hair in the grass but the rest of his back still on the chlamys. When Achilles breaks the kiss, Zagreus moans at the loss of contact, surprised at his own voice; he must already be at that embarrassing, pillow-stifling stage where he can’t control the sounds he makes.

Achilles touches his pauldron with one hand, holding himself above Zagreus with the other. Shadows dance over the ridges of his muscle from the firelight.

“May I?”

Zagreus can only nod, afraid of the sound he’d make if he tried to talk right now. With the pauldron removed and set aside, his chiton separates at the shoulder. Achilles pulls it gently down to his waist.

“Look at you,” he whispers.

Achilles touches his cheek, then strokes down past his chin to his neck, a soft pressure over his collarbone. Leaning forward with a rumple of golden hair, he mouths at the dip in Zagreus’s other collarbone, tongue hot and wet against the sensitive skin, provoking another moan and a hitch in Zagreus’s breath, a jolt in his hips. He can feel his own erection jutting against his tights, throbbing and insistent, nearly painful – he had no idea that this could feel so good, the way Achilles is sucking at his neck. He throws his head back into the grass, clutching behind Achilles’s shoulders, writhing underneath him almost like he’s being tickled, this excruciating pleasure-pain.

“Achilles,” he hears himself whine, followed by a “sir,” even though they’ve moved past that but it’s the way he addresses him in his fantasies –

“Have you,” Achilles starts, his lips moving into the side of Zagreus’s neck as he talks, “been with a man before?”

It takes a moment for Zagreus to wrest back control of his voice. “No,” he answers, reddening even further, the hot flush over his skin stealing down to his chest now. It feels like he’s shaking, but that could just be an effect of the adrenaline.

Achilles’s voice is low, measured, into his ear. “Would you have me?”

He’s definitely shivering, a chatter in his jaw and across his ribs that he can’t hide. “I –“

“You’re trembling,” Achilles notices. He lifts Zagreus’s chiton back to his shoulder. “Are you cold?”

Before he can answer, the backdrop of the stars behind Achilles’s head fades into a dizzying blur. He winces on reflex, waiting for the transition into some forced, horrible scene. Instead, his back feels cushioned by a familiar softness, the ceiling above Achilles gray stone now instead of sky, the lights dimmer and the air warmer, thicker. Home. Achilles has taken him home to his own bed. Zagreus has lost count of the number of times he’s pictured this, wanted it so badly he had thought of praying, whispering Achilles’s name into the sheets and twisted up onto his pillow, and now he’s here. He’s here.

“I want to,” he says, half-begging, holding onto Achilles’s neck. “I want it. Please.”

Achilles moves beside Zagreus, sitting up with his legs bent beneath him, his cock every inch as stiff as when he’d taken it from Zagreus’s eager mouth.

“I was … not known for gentleness when I was alive,” he warns in a quiet tone.

“You won’t hurt me, sir.”

_I don’t mind if you do. I don’t mind._

He can see the warrior scanning the room, his attention lingering on the various shelves, and somehow even in his inexperience it clicks what he’s looking for.

“On the – on my shelf, up here,” Zagreus says, scooting back on his hands and reaching up on the headboard, rummaging past the books for the nectar bottle he knows is hiding up there. Achilles’s mouth opens and then closes without comment. He takes the bottle, warming the glass between his hands, and Zagreus returns to his previous position on his back with his knees up, chiton loose around his waist, his skin thrumming, vibrating with anticipation, so impossible to stay still that he slips his own greaves off and lets them clatter to the floor. By the time he’s started fidgeting with his belt, hands shaking, Achilles leans over him and helps to pull it free, loosening the rest of his chiton while Zagreus hooks his thumbs under the hem of his leggings and tugs them down, fabric brushing painfully over his erection, until he’s been revealed, pale and sweat-damp and so hard that the head of his cock is a mottled red, streaked with his own precome.

He hears Achilles let out a breath, saying something that he can’t hear. Then, slightly louder, “I’ll need to … prepare you. Prepare us.”

His hand, gentle, on Zagreus’s knee, not pulling, just waiting patiently until Zagreus gets the message and spreads his legs, shifting on his back. Sweet-scented nectar dripping from his fingers, Achilles introduces one inside, and Zagreus holds his breath at the strange, ticklish feeling of it, his toes spreading and curling in an attempt to keep him from moving too much.

“Breathe,” Achilles tells him, “in and out.”

This he does, and Achilles enters further on Zagreus’s second exhale, reaching a point where it stops feeling strange and starts feeling like he wants more of it, now, his breath coming out in short, obedient huffs, hands gripping the sheets, his unattended cock aching, jealous of the contact so close to it. When Achilles pulls out, he whines deep in the back of his throat, out of his mind, not even caring anymore.

And then Achilles is kneeling before him, aligning his hips, and Zagreus wraps his legs around him, ankles tucked under his strong arms, _this is actually happening this is real_ \- smoothing sweet nectar over the length of his cock and then pushing inside, slowly, gently, and the sensation is so immediately overwhelming that Zagreus cries out, arches his back and bucks his hips, and Achilles slips out.

“Was I – are you hurt?” he asks in concern, placing an attentive hand on his chest, brows knit with worry.

“No,” Zagreus pants, “no, feels so good I can’t,” slurring, breathless.

“Oh,” Achilles says, and Zagreus thinks that’s the end of it until he hears in a deep growl, “I’ll give you more, then,” and Achilles takes him with one smooth thrust all the way inside, and the sound Zagreus makes is so high-pitched and loud that he curls his fist over his mouth, biting down on his knuckle. Achilles pulls out and fucks into him again and his teeth sink deeper into his own skin, moaning, eyes closed, until a powerful hand closes around his wrist and physically moves his arm down.

“I want to hear you,” comes Achilles’s voice, almost guttural now. “Want you to say my name.”

“Achilles,” the sound of it ripping from the back of his throat, “Achilles, sir, feelssogood –“

Faster now, holding Zagreus under his knees, golden hair in his face flying back and forth with every movement of his hips, his shoulders high and locked. Zagreus reaches out insanely for his hand, peeling his grip away, and somehow Achilles understands what he’s trying to do, laces his fingers through Zagreus’s and clutches his hand tight, leaning forward to kiss it, and everything Zagreus has been holding in comes completely unspooled. Tears spring up hot in his eyes and he’s sobbing between ragged, uneven breaths, Achilles holding Zagreus’s hand up to his own face like a precious thing, fucking him relentlessly, letting go of his knee to spread his still-nectar-slick fingers over Zagreus’s cock, working at it until Zagreus arches his back with his laurel slipping off and screams, coming hard enough to black out his vision, tidal waves of sensation crashing through his body. The intensity of it spills over onto Achilles like wildfire, his eyes clenched shut, throwing his head back with his grip vice tight on Zagreus’s hand and holding his breath as he comes, pulsing hot deep inside, then doubling over, almost falling onto Zagreus, catching himself on his other hand. His hair falls over Zagreus’s chest, and Zagreus reaches up shakily to tuck it behind his neck.

It hurts to breathe but he doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to break the spell just yet. Zagreus blinks at his tears, rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist, still holding on to Achilles’s hand. Achilles comes to rest beside him, letting go only to readjust Zagreus’s laurels, brush his hair out of his face, then returning to intertwine his fingers again.

“I’ll be here,” Achilles says quietly, “waiting, whenever you need me.”

Zagreus closes his sore eyes, then opens them again, and somehow in the interval between, his chiton and pauldron have refastened themselves, his greaves snug around his legs, all of his sticky sweat vanished. Achilles, too, is again wrapped in his chlamys and linothorax, circlet holding his hair behind his ears, and he has just enough time to notice this before his bedroom fades away, replaced by trees and stars, the fire still burning strong.

“I wish there was something else,” Zagreus mumbles, looking into the fire, waiting for his eyes to adjust again. “Some other way.”

“Your father said he keeps the contract on his person at all times. I’m not sure what else can be done.”

It occurs to him, then, that there is a way out of this, the one thing so obvious that it hadn’t even seemed possible.

“I know what to do,” he breathes. “I know what I have to do.”

* * *

The snow, white and whirling, burning under his feet. Zagreus stands with his head high, both hands on Varatha, waiting for his father to acknowledge him.

“All you have ever been, and all you will ever be, is a waste of my effort.”

“That’s right, father,” he says to Hades’s back, too quiet for him to hear. “A waste of your effort. But not his.”

This time the battle feels different; this time he has a purpose beyond himself, beyond his anger. This time he sidesteps his father’s blows, catching them on Varatha’s shaft instead of fighting back, dodging and weaving just to keep his head above water, waiting for his opening.

“You value those fools on Olympus so highly,” Hades hisses after another missed sweep. “It was their will that brought down Achilles, that swept his fool lover along with him. Where is your wrath for my kin?”

“I have enough for everyone,” Zagreus mutters.

Another round of avoidance, leaving Hades visibly frustrated as he pursues with his great spear, only for Zagreus to run like a coward, like the worm Hades thinks he is, without even attempting to fight back.

“What puerile game is this?” Hades snarls. “If this is an attempt to provoke mercy, I assure you, there is none to be had."

Zagreus pauses with his back up against a snow-wet wall, giving himself enough time for an inhale and an exhale. Focus. He has to focus. He won’t get another chance. If he can keep his father from suspecting, from preparing a defense –

Stones crumble behind him with the force of a shockwave, cold snow pelting down his chiton, chilling against his skin, and he runs – the one thing he’s good at, the only thing he’s good at anymore – keeping Varatha loose in his hand, knowing it won’t see blood this time.

“To think, I had assumed my opinion of you could sink no lower.”

Hades has stopped. His great spear is held to the side, his feet planted solidly in the snow. He fixes a bitter glare at his only son, disgust obvious in his face, but with a ghost of apprehension beneath – sensing that something here is not as it seems, something beyond him for the moment. His father’s not stupid. He’s determined to regain the upper hand now. One chance. He has one chance at this.

“Strike me,” he bellows, gesturing with his arms wide. “At least grant me the courtesy of considering this a fight.”

Zagreus swallows. He steps toward his father, closer, until he’s within Varatha’s range, and then closer still, enough to hear his father’s rapid, angry breaths. Zagreus drops his spear and wraps his arms around his father, nestles his head against his chiton. Hades freezes.

“Thank you, father, for everything,” he whispers.

One hand slips down to Hades’s belt, closes on a scroll of parchment. As slowly as he can, he lifts it, keeping his arm fixed in place. He disguises the movement with a pat on his father’s broad back, knowing he’s small enough that Hades can’t see him down here beneath his beard, small enough to stay beneath his father’s notice now and in all things. He slips the scroll under the breast of his chiton. One chance.

“Blast it, what do you think you’re doing?”

He hasn’t seen. Hades hasn’t seen him. Zagreus steps back, a grin breaking out on his face, too excited to hold it back. He’s laughing now – it must look as though he’s lost his mind.

“Go ahead and send me home, father,” he says, smiling wide, his heart pounding with satisfaction. “I’ve lost the will to fight.”

“Finally an appeal to reason.”

Without any further consideration, Hades lifts his spear and impales his son through the stomach. He lifts Zagreus in the air, blood gushing from his twin wounds, staining the snow, then flings him to the earth with one forward thrust. Zagreus hits the ground hard and rolls, his consciousness fading, arms useless and doll-limp underneath him, but he can feel the parchment against his skin as the Styx rushes forward to claim him, and he lets it flood him with a smile that won’t leave, a smile that remains when he comes to his feet and stumbles up the stairs with the blood-river dripping down the back of his legs, leaking from his hair into his mouth.

The scroll is still there. Zagreus pulls it from his chiton and holds it tight in his hand, bending and warping the parchment with the force of his grip. He kneels in front of the house contractor, too tired to stand.

“By my authority, I want this annulled,” he says with all the force he has left in his lungs. The contractor’s nebulous arm forms itself around the scroll, then retreats into its own blackness. Zagreus empties every one of the pouches on his belt, pouring them to the floor – a rainbow of gems, small round diamonds, old treasures from his room, gifts, anything and everything he has a claim to that might be of value to someone, somewhere.

“Take it. Whatever you need.”

The contractor grunts, filches through the pile with a shadowy, handlike appendage, and selects a few of the treasures on array. Then the appendage fades.

“That’s it?” Zagreus breathes. “Then it’s done?”

A wordless grunt.

“Thank you. Thank you.” He refills his pouches with his hands shaking on the gems, his throat closing up with ridiculous emotion. That’s all it took – no fanfare, no negotiation. When he stands, he can see Nyx watching him, and as their eyes meet, her still face bends with a smile, genuine enough to make her eyes shine.

“Go to him,” she whispers, and he does.

* * *

Elysium is silent, save for the faint chatter of birds and the soft rustle of the phantom breeze that carries the mists on its back. There are no shades here, not here along the banks of the Lethe or surrounding the great statues; Zagreus walks through room after room, all of them empty, abandoned. Behind every golden door he expects to see them, tensing in anticipation, but it feels as though all of Elysium is asleep, oblivious to his presence. This must be what it feels like for Patroclus, he thinks – this silence.

He waits for the next door to open, sliding downward on its golden hinges. His breath catches. Here in front of him is the rest of Elysium. Countless soldiers have arranged themselves into a phalanx with their backs to him. Brightshields stand in the front, kneeling with their shields held proud and high; spearmen behind them with their weapons straight, in military precision; archers to the sides, their bows shouldered. Even the riderless chariots are positioned at the flanks, their wheels stilled, their faint growling the loudest sound here among the hallowed silence. A display of respect. A warrior’s welcome.

Before the phalanx stands Achilles, his back turned, unmoving. He wears Nyx’s black shawl still, tied over his green chlamys, the rough knot tangled through with strands of his golden hair.

“Achilles,” Zagreus calls.

The great warrior turns to face him. There are tears down to his chin, and he blinks through them, trying to smile for Zagreus but his lips are trembling with emotion.

“You’re free. I voided the contract. The whole thing.”

“I don’t have words,” Achilles whispers, his voice shaking. “I don’t have words.”

If this is a goodbye, Zagreus couldn’t have imagined a better one. Achilles gave him what he could, gave freely from what was left of his heart. It’s enough to know that Achilles loves him as much as he can, even if that means he has to let him go now. Zagreus owes him this much. He owes him everything.

Achilles glances down, sending fresh tears along the same wet tracks. The sight of it clenches at Zagreus’s heart; there’s nothing he can do to comfort him here. It’s out of his hands. Achilles isn’t his to comfort or to keep – he’s returning to Patroclus, where he belongs, where he should have been this whole time. His years with Zagreus were just an interlude, an interruption between two lovers who had torn the world apart for each other. Zagreus is telling himself all of this right now like a mantra in his head to drown out the memory of the way Achilles feels on top of him, the way his lips taste, the smell of his hair, the sound of his low, deep voice calling him beautiful.

“Zagreus,” Achilles says after a long moment, breaking him free from his thoughts. “I can’t … do this alone. Face him.”

“I thought you’d want to be alone with him.” _I don’t belong there. I can’t face him. I can’t watch the two of you and turn around and say goodbye._

“No.” Achilles’s voice has grown firmer. There’s a resolve behind it, the same tone he’d had when telling Zagreus not to give up. “He should see you. He should know who you are. To me.”

_You’re so much like him, you know._

_It’s as though you share his spirit._

“Then you’re not …”

As though suddenly catching the trail of his thoughts, Achilles huffs out a small sound of surprise and shakes his head, brows furrowing in astonishment. “Zagreus. You truly thought I’d – that I would leave you behind?”

Zagreus doesn’t know what to say. He tries to keep breathing.

Achilles begins to walk alongside the phalanx, coming around the side. Every soldier-shade he passes bows its head, one after the other, in a processive ripple. When he reaches Zagreus, he takes his hand again, slipping his fingers through just as he had before, holding it tight.

“I had wondered, in all this time after my death,” he starts, “what to make of the things I had done. My trials and my mistakes. My pride and my vanity. You’ve shown me. You’ve shown me that.”

He lifts Zagreus’s hand to his mouth and kisses it. Zagreus can feel Achilles’s tears, still wet on his face, dripping onto his skin.

“Patroclus –“ and his eyes flutter closed reflexively, open again after just a brief moment “– if he has truly forgiven me … Patroclus’s forgiveness will be my absolution. And you, Zagreus. You are my redemption.”

Achilles gives it another moment for his words to sink in, and then he leads Zagreus by the hand around the side of the phalanx, the two of them together, heading for the door.

“Come. I’m sure he’ll have many questions for us.”

For us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!! this has been the most ridiculously positive, upbeat, creative fandom I've ever been a part of!!
> 
> I'm on twitter at @stellympho if you feel like adding me (though I barely ever post because my life is a constant struggle but I love reading everyone's silly Hades content because it brings me life)


End file.
